Fridman Gallery is honored to present Passages, the first solo exhibition by Tajh Rust. A meditation on the lasting impression of transitions, the artist’s new paintings trace the passage of time, of bodies through space, and of ideas through text.

Through figuration and abstraction, Rust explores the relationship between black identity and space. He collaborates with his subjects to determine how they are represented and employs film and literary references to draw connections among portraiture, language, and modes of representation.

Central to Rust’s practice is his mastery of color, with which he creates vivid environments echoing the subjects’ skin tones. Individuals are at once obscured and placed center-stage, challenging the historical invisibility of black bodies. Referencing the perspectival distortions more typically employed in film and photography, Rust’s paintings command the gaze of the viewer toward the intimacy of each scene.

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Born in Brooklyn, Tajh Rust is currently based between New York and New Haven. Rust graduated from The Cooper Union in 2011 with a BFA in Painting and Film. He is currently an MFA candidate at Yale University School of Art. His works have been shown at various venues, including the New York Immigrant Coalition (2017), the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (2017), Untitled Miami Beach (2018), and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center (2018).