Cosmo Whyte Sketches of Character 1, 2021 (detail)
About
Cosmo Whyte (b. 1982, St. Andrew, Jamaica) employs drawing, sculpture, and photography to explore the intersections of race, nationalism, and displacement. His large scale drawings pose the celebratory body of Jamaican and diasporic communities in states of jubilation. His figures, adorned with gold leaf and black glitter, defy their colonial past, tearing it from their bodies through unbridled dance.
Whyte received a BFA from Bennington College, a post-baccalaureate at Maryland Institute College of Art, and a MFA from University of Michigan. In 2020 he had solo exhibitions at MOCA Georgia and ICA San Diego. Whyte has exhibited in biennial exhibitions including Prospect.5 New Orleans (2022) 13th Havana Biennial, the Jamaica Biennial (2017), and the Atlanta Biennial (2016). His work has been included in exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; The Somerset House, London, UK; Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles, CA; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; and the National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. His work is in public museum collections including the High Museum, Atlanta; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; International African American Museum, Charlotte, NC; Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia; National Gallery of Jamaica; and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. In 2022 he joined the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture as an assistant professor. Whyte lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Cosmo Whyte The Enigma of Arrival in 4 parts. Part 1: “Guess Who Is Coming to Dinner”, 2017
Mussel shells, life vest, shipping pallet
90 x 62 x 26 inches / 228.6 x 157.5 x 66 cm
Cosmo Whyte Enigma of Arrival in Four Sections: Section III: Disembarkment, 2020
Airline chair, fabric, plastic, broken ceramic plates on shipping pallet
60 x 84 x 48 inches / 152.4 x 213.4 x 121.9 cm
How These Artists Learn From Each Other | Cosmo Whyte and Nari Ward
Whyte describes his new series as a collaboration with his late father — an architect who left behind an array of unfinished drawings that Whyte is working to complete. His latest work includes expansive steel structures on exhibit at the Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles. These structures echo his father’s affinity for creating domestic spaces with centralized public yards, an idea rooted in the West African vernacular of communal, multipurpose spaces that were at once private and public. —Pierre-Antoine Louis
Cosmo Whyte | 5 L.A. Gallery Shows to Close out This Summer
We as a human people have a lot going on right now, including learning that today’s atmosphere (literal and not) is the legacy of a long, often painful past that needs unwinding, coaxing. L.A.-based Cosmo Whyte does his artist’s duty by translating that process across disparate physical mediums from charcoal to beaded curtains so heavy they can make visitors realize the reality of what they mean — sourcing his imagery all the while from historic events and family archives alike. Neon lights repeating “don’t behave like the men who brought you here” could reasonably haunt anybody reading them. —Vittoria Benzine
NOW: Cosmo Whyte: Hush Now, Don’t Explain is on view through September 9.As an artist, Whyte’s interests in the energy, legacy, and conceptual framework, but also the literal actions of “the archive” have inspired him to explore myriad facets that intersect across his personal history and geopolitical circumstances.
NEXT: Ming Ying opens September 23 – October 4. The U.S. debut of the Chinese-born, London-based painter will explore her evolving techniques with heavy impasto oil paint, to create romantic and psychedelic scenes of desire.
—Shana Nys Dambrot
In His Downtown L.A. Studio, Artist Cosmo Whyte Works Nights Surrounded by Books, Beads, and Two Taxidermied Roosters
Scouring archives of institutions large and small, Whyte seeks out captivating photographs, usually depicting African diasporic history, particularly that of the Caribbean. These photographs serve as the basis for his wide-ranging artistic interventions. “Hush Now, Don’t Explain,” the artist’s second solo exhibition at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, brings together his most recent explorations. —Katie White
In artist Cosmo Whyte’s hands, metal beaded curtains become sites of “archival explorations”
Whyte regards this show as being in conversation with his previous exhibitions, which have centered on themes of immigration, colonialism and civil disobedience, with Black figures depicted in scenes of protest, pageantry and solemnity. — Leigh-Ann Jackson
Cosmo Whyte | Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today
In Beyond the Boundary, 2022, Jamaican artist Cosmo Whyte memorializes the West Indies’ five consecutive cricket victories against the English in 1984 by printing a photograph of a jubilant crowd holding a sign reading BLACK WASH onto a heavy nickel-plated steel-bead curtain in the entryway between two galleries. — Daniel R. Quiles
Annotating History, A Conversation with Cosmo Whyte and Marlon James
Marlon James, the prizewinning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, talks with artist Cosmo Whyte on the narrative of exile, the danger in a single story, and the meaning of masquerade. —Njelle Hamilton
Moving through the beaded partition, viewers activate this static historical image, a gesture of pixelation and deconstruction, implicating the audience as more than mere spectators—a strategy that underscores Whyte’s artistic practice.
Cosmo Whyte’s Textured Response to a Year of Racial Upheaval
The Jamaican-born artist's Los Angeles exhibition draws on carnival and the Civil Rights Movement to create a patchwork of painting, sculpture and installation that's as commemorative as it is expressive. — Ravi Ghosh
Nothing is just one thing. This is a sentiment that many of us here in the United States, particularly those of us with privilege, are coming to terms with in an entirely new way. This lesson is reinforced in Cosmo Whyte’s show “When They Aren’t Looking We Gather by the River,” on view at Anat Ebgi. — Cole Sweetwood
Cosmo Whyte | Los Angeles Art Guide for December 2020
In Cosmo Whyte’s stirring, first solo exhibition with the gallery, he makes connections between contemporary Black Lives Matter protests, Black Civil Rights movements in the 1960s, and African-Caribbean protests in 1980s London. — Elisa Wouk Almino
The migrant’s journey: Artist Cosmo Whyte forges a new identity in a new land
“I hope to create interest in a larger conversation on immigration and certainly the notion of identity. The identity you had in your home country is not who you will be in your host country.” —Cosmo Whyte
San Diego Weekend Arts Events: Cosmo Whyte And Beliz Iristay
There's a mundane element in his work: an object from a home, something everyday or kitschy obscured by repetition or the way it's linked with other elements in a piece. —Julia Dixon Evans
"It varies depending on where you are and how you position yourself, but I’ve always been fascinated with how the “formerly colonized” navigate spaces. As I matured into my own artistic practice, I kept that experience at the forefront." —Cosmo Whyte
"This undermines how pervasive the reach of colonialism and its mindset is in our modern lives, and the ripple effects that afflict multiple generations. We are still in the wake of colonialism, and the need for decolonization in almost every facet of modern-day life, institutions, and self is urgent." —Cosmo Whyte
Review: In MOCA GA show, Cosmo Whyte displays breadth, and hints at what’s next
What for some might be a contrast between visual pleasure and aromatic displeasure will evoke feelings of home and pride for others. Ackee and saltfish is Jamaica’s national dish. Whyte intertwines its complex past and references the international exchange that led to its association with Jamaica. —TK Smith
The works included in the exhibition celebrate the dissonance of loving the home they’ve found while championing, as Baldwin notes, “…the right to criticize her perpetually.”
"I truly enjoy teaching and mentorship. It’s incredibly rewarding being part of the process of assisting young artists in finding their voices." —Cosmo Whyte
ECONOMIES OF EMPIRE AND THE PRECARITY OF MOBILITY ASHLEY RAGHUBIR ON COSMO WHYTE’S “SECTION 2: RED, GREEN, BLUE AND BLACK” FROM HIS SERIES “THE ENIGMA OF ARRIVAL IN 4 SECTIONS”
Whyte’s The Enigma of Arrival attends to the complexity of interweaved migration histories and the ever-changing complex subjectivities of those who move without claims to resolution or singularity. —Ashley Raghubir
Art review: Trauma of migration marks Cosmo Whyte’s solo show
Isolated on a large mass of white paper, Whyte’s figures rendered in velvety strokes of charcoal and often accented with swaths of gold leaf dissolve into a puddle or seem to turn away so quickly their features are lost in a blur. —Felicia Feaster
Part celebration, part consternation, the exhibition is dazzling in its ability to render the emotional complexity of diaspora. Like the crier who both belongs to the village and is apart from it, Whyte proclaims the news of the day, even to what denies him community. —Katie Geha
A conversation with Atlanta-based artist Cosmo Whyte, a Hudgens Prize finalist
Having shown in Atlanta, Cape Town, South Africa, Miami, Paris and Kingston, among other places in 2016 alone, Whyte is still creating along his core themes of identity, the effects passed down through generations after colonization and the language of ritual. —Stephanie Dowda
Whyte makes drawings, photographs and mixed-media sculptures; here, his “Manifest Destiny, the Musical” (2017) features a life-size, wooden sculpture of a dreadlocked black man reaching down with both hands to hold his genitals — except that only an empty socket appears at the base of a missing phallus. —Edward M Gómez
Artadia’s 2016 Atlanta Award Winners Are Jiha Moon and Cosmo Whyte
Cosmo Whyte explores themes of immigration and colonialism in his trans-disciplinary work. Fuller spoke about how Whyte’s performance, drawing, and sculpture “unpack the complexities of growing up within colonialism and maintaining identity. It is both highly personal and specific to each of us.” —Angela Brown
"My entire body of work deals with migration in some way or form, and I was just trying to find a new way of talking about migration that went beyond catchphrases like 'diaspora' or 'identity in flux.' I’m fascinated by this notion of plants that have been uprooted and deposited in other places in the world; they can mimic the movement of human bodies." —Cosmo Whyte
A Review of “Cosmo Whyte: Wake the Town and Tell the People”
In Whyte's practice, the essence of the refugee's experience is turned and twisted and examined via a sharp dovetailing of materials, forms and methods of making. Water is symbolic of death and renewal, and the oceans are the source of all life, as well as gateways of global transit and flight. —Clara DeGalan
For Boundary-Breaking Artists, Some Bonds Can’t Be Severed
Cosmo Whyte embodies the dilemma of an artist torn by two worlds in a series of photographs depicting a barefoot man in a Wall Street business suit overwhelmed by big, high-end, colorful ties practically choking his neck — a straightforward but bold metaphor. —Gary Tischler
The Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant nominee
CUE Foundation Finalist, NY
Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, ISC, NJ
Ned Dybvig Memorial MFA Thesis Exhibition Award
Vermont Studio Residency Full Fellowship, VT
2014
Rackham International Travel Grant, University of Michigan
Smucker Wagstaff Grant, University of Michigan
2011
Finalist for the Jamaica Super-Plus under 40 Artist of the year, Kingston, Jamaica
2010
The Forward Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award, Atlanta, GA
Press
2023
Quiles, Daniel. "Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s - Today." Art Forum. March 2023.
2020
Gaugh, Catherine. "The migrant’s journey: Artist Cosmo Whyte forges a new identity in a new land." The San Diego Union-Tribune. September 19, 2020. (Link)
"20 Artists received Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grants," Artsy. May 12, 2020. (Link)
Smith, T.K. "Cosmo Whyte: Mining the Body for Gold." Art Papers. January 15, 2020. (Link)
2019
Olsen, Katie. "Miami Art Week 2019: Opulent Art Work." Cool Hunting. December 10, 2019. (Link)
Smith, T.K. "Review: In MOCA GA show, Cosmo Whyte displays breadth, and hints at what’s next." Arts ATL. December 3, 2019. (Link)
Brown, Griselda Murray. "How African and diaspora artists are holding a mirror to society." Financial Times. November 2, 2019. (Link)
Tafoya, Harry. "Finding Both Comfort and Challenge in the Idea of 'Home'." Hyperallergic. July 2, 2019. (Link)
Haunt, Journal of Art Issue 005 November, University of California, Irvine
Get Up Stand Up, Exhibition Catalogue, The Summerset House, London, England
The Sea is History, Exhibition Catalogue, Museum of Cultural History, Oslo, Norway
2018
The Enigma of Arrival, Exhibition Catalogue, The Mason-Scharfenstein Museum
2017
Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, Exhibition Catalogue, Museum of Latin American Art
I WAS HERE. BUT I DISAPEAR: Ivanhoe ‘Rhygin’ Martin and the Effect of Photographic Disappearance in Jamaica,” Art Journal
Afrotropes and Other Things That Run – A conversation with Heuy Copeland and Krista Thompson, OCTOBER, JSTOR
2016
Jamaican Routes, Exhibition Catalogue, Punkt ø/Galleri F 15, Norway
2015
Afrikadaa Politics of Sound (December)
Sculpture magazine (October)
Infinite Mile a journal of art and culture(s) in Detroit Rites, Exhibition Catalogue, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA
WASH, Free Oxyn Press, Ann Arbor, MI
2014
The Jamaica Biannual 2014, Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Jamaica
2010
The Jamaica Biannual 2010, Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Jamaica
2008
Pepper Pot, Exhibition Catalogue, UNC Chapel Hill
Teaching
2022 - Present
Assistant Professor, Department of Art, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
2021-2022
Assistant Professor of Art, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
2015-2020
Visual Art Lecturer, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA
2016
MFA Mentor Low-Residency School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2012-2015
Teacher Assistant, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2010-2012
Artist Assistant to Sculptor Basil Watson, Atlanta GA
2009-2012
Art Teacher, Cook Elementary, Atlanta, GA
2007-2008
Art Teacher, Vivian T. Thomas Academy (High School), Baltimore, MD
Residencies
2020
Lux Art Institute, Encinitas, CA
Surf Point Foundation, York, ME
2018
Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France
Drawing Center Open Session, NY
2016
Elsewhere Museum, NC
2015
Vermont Studio Residency, VT
2007
Creative Currents Residency, Panama
Lectures & Presentations
2023
"Underside, Underbelly, Undertow: A Conversation with Jamal Cyrus, Charisse Pearlina Weston and Cosmo Whyte", Queens Museum, Queens, NY (Link)
2018
“The Enigma of Arrival” Piedmont College
Visiting Artist Program Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
“BLACK PORTRAITURE[S] IV: The Color of Silence- Color-Coded Practices: Caribbean Arts Professionals Perspective on Race” Harvard University
2017
“(En)Lightning Talks Atlanta” Phi Beta Kappa Society, Woodruff Center, Atlanta
“Guess Who is Coming to Dinner” University of Alabama, Alabama
2014
“Shonibare in Context”, Henry Brown Bag Festival, Philadelphia
“Conversation Without Walls: Considering Contemporary Artistic Practices and the Distribution of "New" Black Creativity-Dancespace Project, New York
Public Collections
21 c Collection
Hallmark Art Collection
High Museum
International African American Museum
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia
National Gallery of Jamaica
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Videos
/Dialogues: Forecast Form | Carla Acevedo-Yates in Conversation with Suchitra Mattai and Cosmo Whyte
Join Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for a conversation on her exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today–which features artworks whose formal approaches reconfigure the relationship between identity and place through the lens of diaspora, displacement, and dispersal.
April 2023
Cosmo Whyte: Studio Visit
The High Museum of Art visited Cosmo Whyte in his Atlanta studio where he shares new work inspired by immigration, social gatherings, and protests surrounding police brutality. All these works are being made in preparation for his upcoming solo show at Anat Ebgi gallery.