interview: artist david shrobe turns discarded materials into empowering portraits

At moniquemeloche gallery in Chicago, artist David Shrobe reinvents classical portraiture with Natural Sovereignty, an exhibition of textural, collage-style artworks. The show is a celebration of family life and heritage within Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities. This theme is especially poignant as the works will be the last to have been created in the artist’s longtime home and studio in Harlem, New York — next month Shrobe will vacate the apartment in which his family had lived for nearly a century. Within this bittersweet context, the artist weaves together spoken histories and family portraits, drawing from past generations to present a narrative that resonates with both the past and future.