ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a southern girl, who was taught nothing of her history. To understand my place as a daughter of the Diaspora, I explore universal themes of identity, history, and memory. My interdisciplinary practice is guided by ethnographic and historical research questions. I am excavating what has been forgotten to reimagine the past in order to build visual connections to the present. By pushing the traditional presentation of photography—combining layers digitally and physically, manipulating color, surface, light and shadow — my pigment and cyanotype photographs, mixed media works and installations sparks dialogue regarding the complex relationship we have with history: what gets spotlighted versus what gets minimized.
My photographic practice is not that of a documentarian. Rather, through a wide range of image making techniques, I construct my images and installations to explore the archives and how people of the past sustained themselves –both physically and spiritually–through a reliance on each other and the land. Questions that currently guide me are: How can exploration of archives and artifacts create connection to people and the land? What resources were used to survive and how can that knowledge be utilized today? How did people exert agency and cultivate space? These questions act as entry points for my work with the ultimate goal of creating new visual folktales. The photographic seedlings of ancestors far removed from their homeland are placed in dialogue with the artifacts and ethnobotanical legacy of plants that were and are still used for sustenance as well as for medicinal and spiritual purposes. I create a speculative visual history, grounded by our shared history that was lost to me and others in order to mend our histories together.
My work centers African American children to immediately make them a part of the historical narrative. Thus, they are seeds growing visual myth and new folklore, playing in a space of speculative histories imagined. These constructed memories are a combination of history and imagination. Toni Morrison has an essay that looks at memory that I draw upon heavily, "On the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply. What makes it fiction is the nature of the imaginative act: my reliance on the image - on the remains - in addition to recollection, to yield up a kind of a truth." My work explores the visual and historical reminders of memory, weaving together threads both real and reimagined. I play upon the notion of gaining insight visibility by looking at history contained within memory, within family artifacts, within cultural artifacts, and within spiritual artifacts. Artifacts, in the sense of what remains or what is left over– what echoes out. Artifacts in the sense of what is determined not to be erased— an artifact of memory. This artifact is contained in both the body, the mind and the body represented by material culture. These are things that we hold on to that represent our specific culture. A culture represented within family, within community, and a joining of others in shared memory. These works explore two worlds, the actual and the possible.
C.V.
TOKIE ROME-TAYLOR_____________________
b. 1977- American born photography based artist
(770)256-2011
www.tokietstudio@gmail.com
Education
2008 Ed.Specialist, Lesley University, Cambridge Massachusetts, Magna Cum Laude
2006 MAEd, Lesley University, Cambridge Massachusetts, Magna Cum Laude
1999 BFA, Morris Brown College, Atlanta Georgia, Magna Cum Laude
Professional Experience
2024
Visiting Artist Lecture, University of Georgia
Artist Lecture, Griffin Museum
2023
Visiting Artist Lecture, University of Virginia
2022
Instructor, Penland School of Craft, Bakersville NC
2020
Visiting Artist Lecture Series, University of Delaware
Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Albion College
1999-Present
Arts Instructor, Atlanta Public Schools
Professional Activities and Affiliations
2024-Present
Advisory Board, Atlanta Photography Group
Honors and Awards
2024
Nexus Fund Award, Carnegie Mellon Regranting program
2023
Penland School of Craft, Distinguished Fellow, NC
University of Virginia, Artist Residency, VA
Atlanta Contemporary Studio Artists Program( 3 year award)
Stay home Residency, Tennessee
2021
Fulton County Arts and Culture Grant Awardee
Finalist, MINT + ACP Fellowship
Legacy Award, Griffin Museum, Winchester MA
2020
PhotoLucida Critical Mass Top 50 Photographers
National Black Arts Festival Artist Grant Recipient
Fulton County, Ga. Artist Grant Award
2019
Virginia Twinam Smith Purchase Award, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia
2008
Funds for Teachers Fellow- Photography and Digital Painting Sante Fe, New Mexico and San Francisco, California
Solo Exhibitions (Selected)
2025
I wove the archives in the light of southern exposure
Brenau University, Gainesville, GA
2024
Rooted Seeds of Memory
Spalding Nix Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2023
Reclamations
Austin Peay University, Clarkeville, TN
Reclamation
Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, GA
2022
What Remains
PrintHouston, TX,
2021
One Day Soon Come
Wren’s Nest Museum, Atlanta, GA
2020
A Selection of Photographs
Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
Group Exhibitions (selected)
2026
Untitled
Lyndon House, Athens GA (Confirmed Winter)
2025
from within, so together
Swan Coach House (Duo Show with Mona Bozorgi, Fall)
2024
Interwoven Narratives: Caul and Response
University Of North Carolina Greensboro (Duo show)
Works in conversation with the museum’s permanent collection
funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Georgia Museum of Art Athens GA, -2025
Queens, Gods and Devotees
Francis M. Maguire Museum, St. Joseph's University, Brooklyn, NY
AIPAD-The Photo Show
Arnika Dawkins Gallery, New York, NY
Atlanta Art Fair
Atlanta Contemporary, GA,
Portraits
Blue Spiral Gallery, Asheville NC
Contemporary African Spirituality
Seton Hall University, South Orange NJ 2024
2022
Power Play-Representation in Contemporary Photography- Wendy Redstar, Tokie Rome-Taylor, Sara Maple, Martine Gutierrez and Cara Romero
Fralin Museum,University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA
Site of Memory
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
Postcards From Here
APG Gallery, Curated by Maria Kelly, Curator of Photography High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA
Black Angel of History- Afrofuturism Exhibition
Carnegie Hall, NY
Black Creativity Juried Exhibition
Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago IL
Larry Walker and Friends
Mason Fine Art Gallery, Atlanta GA,
2021
Elemental
Spalding Nix Gallery, Atlanta GA,
Fresh Perspectives
Southeast Museum of Photography, Dayton FL
Ascension of Black Stillness
CEPA Gallery Buffalo, NY
Portfolio 2021
Atlanta Photography Group,Curated by Dr. Rebecca Senf, Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography, Atlanta, GA
27th Annual Members Exhibition
Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA
Lyndon House Arts Center
Athens GA
Deep South by Suroeste Presents: COMPLEXION REFLECTIONS
Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Decatur Arts Festival
Dalton Gallery-Agnes Scott College, Decatur GA
Artfields
Lake City, South Carolina
2020
MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora,
SP-Foto SP-Arte, São Paulo, Brazil
57th Annual Juried Competition Masur Museum, Monroe LA, Curated By Allison Glenn, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges of American Art Bentonville, AR
2019
Alan Avery Selects
Atlanta Photography Group, Atlanta, GA
The Function of Freedom A Dedication to Toni Morrison
Auburn Ave. Research Library, Atlanta GA
Press
2023 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, four-artists-explore-personal-identity-through-photos-textiles
2023 Tokie Rome- Taylor Interview NPR WABE- City Lights With Lois Reitzes
2023 The Brownies Book, A Love Letter to African American Families, By Karinda Brown and Charly Palmer ( Cover Art and contributor), recommended by Oprah’s Favorite things
2022 Shifting Time: African American Artists 2020-2021, Co-edited by Klare Scarborough and Berrisford Boothe, the book offers a glimpse into the lives of over 70 African American artists, featuring personal essays, creative poetry, artistic statements, memorial tributes, and images of artworks. 240 pages, 214 illustrations.
2022 Reclamation Essays, family stories and photo based artwork exploring spiritual, material, and familial culture of the American South and the African Diaspora. Author-Tokie Rome-Taylor Writings by Deborah Roberts, Paula Tognarelli, Berrisford Boothe, and Juana Williams.
2022 An Open Eye With Tokie Rome-Taylor Studio Noize Podcast
2022 Frames Magazine, April Issue
2022 Lenscratch, January Issue
2021 Boston Globe, July 2021
2020 What Will You Remember, Critical Mass Issue
2019 Studio Noize Podcast
2019 NBAF: Reimaged Interview "The Business Side of Artlife in Arts Education
1995 The Many Faces of Auburn Avenue George Mitchell and the Students of Grady High School (Spread of Coretta Scott King)
Notable Collections
2025
The Coca-Cola Corporate Collection
Atlanta Ga
2024,2019
The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Asbury, NJ
2023
Fralin Museum
University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA
Deborah Roberts Collection
Austin, TX
2022
Southeastern Museum of Photography
Dayton, Fl
The Colored Girls Museum
Philadelphia, PA
Pamela Thomas-Graham Collection
Chappaqua, NY
2021
Imani Perry Collection
Philadelphia, PA
Damon and Kimberly Fisher Collection
Atlanta, GA
2020
Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia
Atlanta, GA
2019
Fulton County Arts Council
Atlanta GA
City of Decatur
Decatur, GA
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Interdisciplinary artist Tokie Rome-Taylor, practice investigates familial and cultural archives of African Americans in the south through what has been shared and passed down. She explores themes of memory, spirituality, visibility and identity. Through this work she is also excavating to reveal what has been forgotten. Questions that stem from ethnographic and historical research that probe material, spiritual, and familial cultural remnants of descents of southern African Americans are entry points for her to explore a cross pollination of concepts and materials. Children are central to the works, acting as focal points to reconstructed missing narratives within history. Visual conversations around materiality, familial and cultural traditions are developed utilizing both digital and alternative processes of image making, textiles, embroidery, beading and assemblage. Rome-Taylor's ultimate goal is to bend the history of the now within that of the past while shifting the expected notions of interaction and purpose of the photograph.
. Rome-Taylor’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with an exhibition record that includes The Georgia Museum of Art, The New Gallery at Austin Peay University, Hammonds House Museum, The Atlanta Contemporary, the Fralin Museum, The Griffin Museum of Photography, and SP-Foto SP-Arte Fair in São Paulo, Brazil amongst others. Her work is held in multiple public and private collections including the Coca-Cola Corporation, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, The Fralin Museum at University of Virginia, and the Southeastern Museum of Photography. Rome-Taylor is a 20+ year veteran educator and working artist.
She is open to opportunities that relate to artist talks, visiting institutions, residencies and workshops, as well as commissions.
