Detroit artist Jonathan Harris uses his work to express the emotion of the African American experience. Harris’ recent work, “Critical Race Theory,” has gone viral and is encouraging a reevaluation of the theory itself. This 33-year-old artist is self-taught and wants to keep Black history alive for generations to come. He expresses that it should not be erased just to make White people comfortable.
What has everybody talking about your “Critical Race Theory” painting?
It kind of just took off. I didn’t know that it was going to be too serious, I just thought that somebody would buy it and it [would] go away. But after somebody purchased it, [it] kind of just took off. I hope that it serves as a vehicle to keep this conversation [about] critical race theory going.
What do you think people were expecting from a Black artist?
A lot of artists, sometimes you know we get people that want us to just paint celebrities and paint things that probably aren’t really important to us. Personally, I just like to paint what’s important to me. … I just feel like I’m a Black man in America, I had to paint the times that Black people are going through and I have to do it in a way that’s digestible for White people as well.
I’ve gotten a lot of responses from White people that have been positive. There are more positive than negative responses and it’s just emails, direct messages and comments. A lot of people have been giving me a lot of positive feedback, but I’ve received some negative feedback, which is fine. I just want people to have a conversation about it. We can have a conversation about what this really is.
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