J. Rycheal

My practice is shaped by Black oral traditions and ancestral memory, grounded in the belief that our stories live in the body as much as the archive. Through film, performance, photography, and writing, I explore how grief, joy and sovereignty transform the physical and spiritual bodies. Ultimately, my work is about returning to ourselves fully, honoring the wisdom our bodies carry, and imagining freedom as something we embody. My art is an offering that asks: What does it mean to be Black and sovereign, to truly belong to one's self? What does freedom feel like in the body? How do memory and imagination work together to heal what history has broken? Through these narratives, I invite audiences on a path back to wholeness. My journey has been shaped by both intuition and education. I earned my BFA in Fine Art from Georgia Southern University in 2011. In 2019, I was selected for Harvard Business School’s Young American Leaders Program for my work leveraging art and technology for social change. My work has been exhibited at institutions like the Northwest African American Museum and the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and my first solo exhibition, Altar Call, was most recently exhibited at the historic Douglass Theatre in Macon.
Contact: Ifalewab@gmail.com