Following are exhibition reviews:

After receiving her painting and printmaking MFA from Yale this past spring, Harlem-born Self traveled to Los Angeles for the La Brea Studio Residency, before returning to settle in New York.

While on the West Coast, she created a new body of work that was shown this past summer at L.A. gallery, The Cabin; Tropicana”continued Self’s investigation of the black female body through figurative collages composed of paint, fabric, and dry leaf.

The exhibition opened on the heels of her solo New York debut at Thierry Goldberg Gallery in May, and was followed by inclusion in “A Constellation,” a group exhibition up now at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where her canvases hang among work by peers like Andrew Ross and Cameron Rowland.

Feminine and strong, Self’s bold compositions have made her a standout among curators and collectors alike. “I liked the complex sexiness of the work, it’s kind of an anti-Picasso,” says L.A. collector Dean Valentine of Self’s work.?

Source:
Website of Artsy Magazine, December 2015 ("Tschabalala Self: 16 Emerging Artists")

In her latest works, Tschabalala Self continues to depict the regal black body — reposing, dancing, making love — to reverberating effect in large works of paint on canvas to which she appends found fabrics and smaller pieces of painted canvas. All are held together by sewing-machine stitching that creates swirls of energy and contributes to a marvelous random intricacy.

Ms. Self’s paintings convey an elaborate material culture of history and fantasy. Her curvaceous figures recall Thomas Hart Benton and German Expressionism, while her patchwork surfaces evoke Romare Bearden and quilt-making.

Inexpensive calico bloomers in one work conjure slave life; richer fabrics give the embracing couple in the show’s first painting a foreign mien, as if they are a king and queen in Africa. Clichés about the black body as exotic, athletic and sexually powerful are turned to advantage, partly through the intense psychic connection between the figures.

These beings are indifferent to the (white) gaze, even when they float on a field of eyes. Their backs are turned, their faces averted; moments of great intimacy are shielded by the layering of forms and shifts in scale, like the enormous, shielding vivid yellow hands in “Butterfly.” Ms. Self’s work has great promise, which she is developing.

"Tschabala Self: What to See in New York Gallery This Week," by Roberta Smith, Art & Design, The New York Times, web, October 27, 2016

Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self combines sewing, printing and painting in a singular style that speaks to her experience of contemporary black womanhood. Despite her extensive use of craft methods, Self considers herself to be a painter above all else. Her work is known for exaggerated colors and forms, allowing the personages within to “escape” from society’s narrow perceptions.

Explaining her practice, the artist stated: I hope to correct misconceptions propagated within and projected upon the Black body. Multiplicity and possibility are essential to my practice and general philosophy. My subjects are fully aware of their conspicuousness and are unmoved by the viewer. Their role is not to show, explain, or perform but rather ‘to be.’



In being, their presence is acknowledged and their significance felt. My project is committed to this exchange, for my own edification and for the edification of those who resemble me.”