Na’ye Perez: What You Know Bout Love…

Titled after the Pop Smoke song, this work can be viewed as an ode to the meteoric rise of the hip hop star and his recent tragic death at the age of 20, or a memorial to the many tragic deaths over the past two years due to Covid. Yet this large-scale landscape created by Cuban-Haitian-American painter Na’ye Perez is instead the backdrop, speaking to the overlooked, the everyday, the celebration of life and a community that gives rise to musicians like Pop and his Hip Hop style, Brooklyn Drill. Perez’s artistic process values close looking, the textures and details are remixes or samples of found materials like Ting wrappers, MTA cards, and sand from Coney Island; as well as gel transfers of Vibe and XXL magazines dating back to the 1990s. These coded materials and symbols of Black Caribbean culture are layered within the painted streetscape, revealing further depth underneath the blocks of color. A mix of the real and imagined, on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Duryea Place, What you Know Bout Love… is a call, a challenge to take the care and familiarity required to see.

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A Black mother in a blue jacket holds her child with her eyes closed. The child, dressed in yellow long sleeve shirt and pants, looks past the viewer. Behind them, a Black man in a tank top and shorts walks past buildings in palm tree and hibiscus prints.

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A Black person with cropped white hair wears a yellow-collared blue jacket and pink lipstick. Their skin is collaged with brown swisher sweet wrappers. Behind them, Black person stands facing the viewer in a blue long sleeve, black pants, and yellow shoes.

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Two Black people as ride together on their bicycles past buildings made from hibiscus flowers printed on blue paper, a photograph of rapper Tupac Shakur, and United States Postal Service Priority Express labels graffitied with black marker.

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The detail image of a building shows windows made from Black Panther Party posters and red diamonds pasted along the building’s exterior. At the bottom there is a collage of graffitied United States Postal Service Priority Mail Express labels.

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A street corner and city street light. A Black person wearing a long sleeve, backpack, and cap rides their bicycle. A second Black person is walking, wearing a red jacket, long black pants, and Timberland boots. The building exterior is a map of Brooklyn.

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In the foreground, a Black person with pink lipstick stands next to a Black mother holding her child. In the background, one Black person faces the viewer and the other walks to the right of the frame. Four buildings are collaged with print materials.

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A three panel horizontal painting rests on a yellow wall, showing a city street with Black pedestrians, two cyclists, and a mother and child in the foreground. There are six buildings along the street with cutout collage windows.

Photos courtesy of Sebastian Bach.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Na’ye Perez (he/him) is a painting and mixed-media artist living in Brooklyn by way of Columbus, Ohio. He has shown work in solo and group exhibitions at Regular Normal Gallery, NY; Community Folk Art Center, Inc., Syracuse, NY; 129 Gallery, Columbus, OH. His residencies include New Wave, Miami, FL; The Shed’s DISOBEY, and Pratt Institute’s Project 3rd, both in NY.

Venue Information:

Beginning Nov. 1, 2022, attendees of any BRIC House programming will no longer have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter the building. Masks are encouraged but not required in all BRIC operated spaces. If you have questions regarding this protocol, please email Safety@bricartsmedia.org. For our full BRIC House COVID-19 policy, visit: https://www.bricartsmedia.org/safety.