Sedrick Huckaby: The 99%

Philip Martin Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibition of works by Sedrick Huckaby. The highly-anticipated on-line exhibition features a number of pieces from Huckaby's recent series, "The 99%."

Sedrick Huckaby's breathtakingly beautiful drawings offer a profound comment on the power of normal life. Huckaby's subjects seem so real. He draws people in quick, directed lines. Like Alberto Giacometti, Sedrick Huckaby lays down successive strokes that place his models firmly in space. Huckaby's drawings are almost sculptural. They create a clear relationship between artist and model, and between model and viewer.

Everyday people are the essence of Sedrick Huckaby's work. "Ordinary people matter," Huckaby comments. His series, "The 99%," gives voice to a range of people. Many of the subjects live in Ft. Worth, Texas, where Huckaby also makes his home. Depicted in pen, pencil, acrylic and oil pastel, these works remind us of art's power as communicative tool that engenders change by empowering an understanding of one's own life, and those of the people around us.

One of the works in the exhibition features Sedrick Huckaby's own hands. It is not hard to imagine them gliding across the paper in powerful, thoughtful observation. Several of the works include a selection of the conversation Huckaby had with his subjects when drawing them. These conversations fill the margin notes. We learn about remarkable people - an artist from Pakistan, a visitor to a pawn shop, a man met in court, neighbors, friends, and Huckaby's own family. Huckaby's words and images ask us to think about our communities. They ask us to look hard at the people around us, to really see them, and to listen to the stories they have to tell.

Sedrick Huckaby (b. 1975, Fort Worth, TX) received a BFA from Boston University (Boston, MA) and an MFA from Yale University (New Haven, CT). His work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Philip Martin Gallery in the spring of 2021. Huckaby's work has been featured in solo exhibitions at African American Museum (Dallas, TX); Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, TX); The Grace Museum (Abilene, TX) and Danforth Museum of Art (Framingham, MA). Huckaby has been the recipient of awards and fellowships such as Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (New York, NY); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (New York, NY); The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (Washington, D.C.); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (New York, NY); and the 2018 Texas State Visual Artist Award. His work is in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, CA); the African American Museum (Dallas, TX); McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX); Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University (Durham, NC); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); and the U.S. Embassy, Namibia (Republic of Namibia, South Africa). His work has been featured in various publications including “Artforum,” “Hyperallergic,” “National Geographic,” and “Houston Chronicle.” Huckaby lives and works in Fort Worth, TX.