As Grace opens at Tate Britain, Alvaro Barrington talks to Alayo Akinkugbe about how Ghostface Killah and Notting Hill Carnival inspired the work, and why art should be a safe space
AA: Painting is consistent in much of your work, even if combined with different media. Have you painted throughout your life? AB: When my mama died, a lot of the people who took me in, aunts, ain’t really know how to deal with me. If I was drawing in a corner, they felt I was doing something productive, and knew to leave me alone. Especially because they knew I was out in the streets five minutes ago. So they just always left me alone and let me do that as my intellectual safe space.
I went travelling at some point and everywhere , I ended up hanging out with artists. Growing up in New York, I had the same friends through every period of my life, I didn’t know if I was doing things because that’s me, or because that’s what me and the homies always do. Then when I was backpacking, it felt like I was actively choosing this.
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