Downtown Arts: Steven Cozart

About the Artist

Steven Cozart is a visual artist who combines illustrative and figurative imagery with objects and symbols to create provocative visual works and spark conversation that challenge social myths and beliefs in and about the African-American community. Cozart has a BFA in Art Education from East Carolina University with a concentration in printmaking and drawing.

He has exhibited widely, including in group, solo and juried shows at the African American Atelier, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (SECCA), the Nasher Museum, the Harvey B. Gantt Center for American Arts and Culture, the Center for Visual Artists (CVA), Weatherspoon Art Museum, Durham Arts Guild, Greenhill Center for NC Art, and the Greenville Museum of Art.

He is the recipient of the 2016 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies and earned Best in Show at the All Members Juried Exhibition at the CVA in 2013. Cozart currently teaches visual arts and computer graphics at the Weaver Academy for Performing and Visual Arts.

About the Artwork

Cozart says, "It is understood within the Black community that we are and have always been seen as a commodity, moved about against our will, like a chess pawn. The concept that generations of African American males are dealing with the weight and pressure of being perceived as a threat or dangerous while performing mundane everyday tasks is a weight that we carry with us every day.

"That weight unfortunately increases once we have children. In this particular piece, the subject is a new father of a son. I saw such a range of emotions within him, from pride, to worry, to fear. It is such a daunting task to want to raise your son to see himself as a king, yet be within the crosshairs of the society that he must live in."