Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle

Hinkle was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1987. She is of Kentifrica descent, and she has created artworks around this part of her identity.[11] Hinkle was inspired by her mother, herself an artist, who, due to the fact that they lived in the segregated South, was unable to pursue her creative identity. Hinkle's mother enforced the idea of "powerful self-possession" into her, which is why Hinkle does not shy away from tough issues in the world.[12]

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle studied painting (BFA) at Maryland Institute College of Art and writing (MFA) at California Institute of the Arts.[13] She studied at the AICAD New York Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY from 2008 to 2009. She was a US Fulbright Fellow in Lagos Nigeria from 2015–2016.[14]

Hinkle was the youngest artist in the Made in LA Biennial. Her work, both performed and presented, has been featured in the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California, Project Row Houston in Houston, Texas, The California African American Museum,[15] and The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York.[11]

In 2014, Kenyatta and six other black women created and led an event called call and response where each artist bought an object and explained what the object meant to them. Kenyatta also led a panel with the question "Kentifrica is or Kentifrica ain't?" Students, faculty at the Antioch University also presented the research they found on Kentifrica. [16]

By recreating artifacts, sharing narratives, and customs from research archives, I am able to reconstruct a Kentifrican identity.

— Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle

"[Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle's] work investigates race, sexuality and history using historical objects in visual and performance art constructs." [17]

It is essential to understand Kentifrican culture in order to understand Hinkle as an artist. This culture places great value and emphasis on the community, which can be seen in the ways Hinkle assembles objects together to interrogate the colonial and white gaze. Themes of fluid sexuality and collective responsibility that are important to Kentifrican culture, are also present in the tactics Hinkle employs in her works. They form close social circles and gender based roles are not prevalent. Through the community they educate and provide social well-being. The practices and independence of this culture have prevailed even as other cultures have been dominated by European powers.[18]

In Hinkle's work The Evanesced, which means to gradually fade away, she creates amorphous representations of bodies, some feature dashes of color to accent certain parts of them.[12] Hinkle offers a social commentary on the missing African American women. She tries to give them voices through her work. She uses minimalist imagery yet is provocative. This is another style that Hinkle dabbles in. She has an ability to use certain duality's in order to get the most out of her audience. Here she is very confrontational with the issues of sex trafficking, kidnappings, murder or other causes of these women, but at the same time she is creating sympathy and a call to action for these women.[12]

In Hinkle's series The Uninvited, she is trying to reclaim the subjects humanity and no longer make them subject to objectivity. Hinkle uses the mass production nature of the postcards in her favor. They were once used to further the objectification of the women and strengthen the power of the viewer. Hinkle is challenging this power dynamic by covering up the women and giving them the power to dictate what is shown.[19] She is exposing the harsh nature and sad reality that women are subjected to by men. At the same time, she is covering the women's bare bodies from the viewers. The role and obligation of the viewer is put into question here. It is said that photography is inherently violent, and yet many people indulge in this medium. Hinkle is also calling for people to face the horrific consequences of subjecting someone. There is a discomfort in the women's faces, but they are being seen as objects, and objects don't have voices. Hinkle is trying to get her audience to see the wrong that is being committed.[20] Others have seen the drawn on lines as a representation of disease, this disease is colonialism.[11]

She often uses photographs with her artworks and explores what could result from that. For instance, some of her artworks can be seen as nude, but the subject or object is covered in some forms. Her work The Contagion (2012) showed, a young African girl not wearing any clothes but there were thick red scribbly lines from her chest up to her head. While her feet seem to be tied down with some thick black scribbly lines. This work communicated the emotional and uninvited of those emotions and feeling. [21]

• 2017: The Evanesced: Embodied Disappearance, The California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA[24]
• 2016: Exploring The Nowannago with Tyler Matthew Oyer, Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA
• 2016: Exploring The Nowannago with Tyler Matthew Oyer, The Museum of The African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA
• 2015: Kentifrica Is Or Kentifrica Ain't Panel Discussion, University of New Hampshire
• 2014: Call & Response: A Symposium of Black Women in Performance, Curated and organized by Gabrielle Civil, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH
• 2012: The Uninvited: Uncharting the Charted, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
• 2012: Kentifrica Is: An Ethnomusicology Concert, Made in LA 2012 Biennial, LAXART & Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• 2012: Venice Beach Biennial, LAXART & Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• 2012: Perform Chinatown 4th Annual Performance Festival, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
• 2012: Baila Con Dunde, Watts Tower Art Center, Los Angeles CA

Hinkle is the recipient of several fellowships and grants including the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award, the Cultural Center for Innovation's Investing in Artists Grant, Social Practice in Art (SPart-LA), and the Jacob K. Javits Full Fellowship for Graduate Study. She is a recent alumna (2015–2016) of the US Fulbright Program in which she conducted research at the University of Lagos in Lagos, Nigeria.[14]

Her performance and project Kentifrica was featured in the Made in L.A. 2012, making her the youngest artist featured. [25]

• The Kentifrican Museum of Culture: An Extension of the Kentifrica Project
• Kach Studio (artist's website)