Opening Reception: September 5th, 2025 5-8PM
Granville Carroll’s Black Serenity explores the ways in which blackness occupies space. Low-light and low-contrast, Carroll’s self-portraits command viewers to slow down, concentrate, and confront their perceptions of race and blackness. This immersive exhibition creates an environment for self-reflection; a sensorial experience that presents blackness not as a void or absence, but as endless possibility.
As stated by Carroll, “Black Serenity is an exploration of the polarities within darkness as it relates to a primal sense of fear and a conscious mode of evolution and healing. This project explores my relationship to isolation and solitude and how one’s perspective shapes the world they live in. The darkness of space is empty, void and yet, it represents everything that is and can be. In the emptiness of this space is possibility. Through body language, movement, gesture, and expression I span the spectrum of darkness, operating within the polarities while existing within the liminal space.”
Granville Carroll is a Phoenix-based artist and Afrofuturist. He earned his MFA in photography and related media from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently teaching at Arizona State University. Carroll’s work has been shown across the United States and internationally. He has been awarded Top 50 Critical Mass 2022, a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Photography, and a 2022 JGS Fellowship for Photography.
