{the folklore begins...}
It all starts when I was a little homie...nah, well yeah.
Thank you nana for the first church service, momma for the last ass whooping and the supreme source for the challenges. - jamari.
Anthony Jamari Thomas (He/Him) is a Jamaican-American multidisciplinary artist working primarily in moving image, photography, writing and movement. His work concerns descent, mortality and the politics of memory, within the history of the Afro-American experience. With photography, Thomas often wrestles with portraiture in an attempt to survey nodes of representation and intimacy - while his moving image work employs ‘satire’ as a tool to negotiate his understanding of Black American history. Thomas enjoys contesting the artist’s role as a ‘reliable source’ often operating between realism and fantasy consistently as the mechanics of his world-building. Thomas ultimately believes our ability to record/document can stand as contributions to our collective conscious.
Thomas (b.1990) received his Bachelor's degree from John Jay College, New York NY (2012). Thomas work presents a deep interest in black spirituality, ritual, identity and documentation including photography, painting, performance and film. Thomas has exhibited with several spaces throughout New York including: Art In Flux Harlem (2013, 2014), El Museo del Barrio (2014), No Longer Empty (2014) Galerie Protege (2015), BronxArtSpace (2017) National Black Theatre which acquired Trayvon's Cross (2014) for their permanent collection (2017) and Dover Street Market Los Angeles (2018). Additionally, Thomas has released three publications: LAMB (2018), Fragmented Stream of Consciousness (2020) and Life Before (2021), published by Adidas Skateboarding. Lastly, his work has been featured in Office Magazine, Barbed Magazine, Hypebeast, Highsnobiety and Forbes Magazine.
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