Artist Spotlight: John Alleyne

Originally from the island of Barbados, John Alleyne migrated to Brooklyn, NY at the age of sixteen in pursuit of a more well-rounded, quality education. While in Brooklyn, Alleyne became immediately drawn to Hip-Hop culture, and the expressive, gestural quality of street art and graffiti.

“My work is an exploration of freedom, connecting lived experience with an intuitive process of mark-making. Through the use of hairstyle guide aesthetics, I revisit moments in my past where I felt the most vulnerable; and in some cases, the most alone. I aim to find common ground in the Black experience of the barbershop and hair salon as a safe haven or place of sanctuary. While specific spaces may have positive effects on people of color; otherwise starved for belonging and safety, the need for therapy and a safe haven is itself an essential feature of the human experience.

I use unhinged silkscreens, squeegees, and acrylic as mark-making tools to create gestures of abstraction. Within the gestures of these silkscreen monotype prints, I challenge notions of painting, healing, beauty, manhood, and masculinity within the aesthetic of hairstyle-guide posters. Individuals depicted in these posters tend to be anonymous, identifiable by mere numbers, which also points to the broader subject of Black bodies being commodified, manipulated, and deified. For me, abstraction is a way to celebrate, mourn and to learn from the past and present, in order to pursue the future.” – John Alleyne