Ulric Joseph: July 2023

Ulric Joseph was born in San Fernando, Trinidad, 1971. He came to the US in 1995, on a full scholarship, to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art. There he gained a BFA in painting and a MA in digital Art. 

 In 2001 Ulric was offered a position as an academic advisor/adjunct professor at MICA. After working in this capacity for six years, and starting a successful abroad program in Kingston, Jamaica, he and his family had to leave the US due to  immigration reasons. 

His next stop was London, England. He had siblings living there and felt as though this would be a place to further his art  career. In London he started his own web-design business and secured a lucrative contract to redesign his country’s UK  embassy website. It is while he was in London he linked up with an art organization called NOVA arts. Through art they  helped house London’s homeless. Ulric developed a close relationship with this organization and went on to show at their  London Bridge gallery. He was planning for a show in Liverpool when his life took another turn. His wife left him with his two  daughters. 

Soon, with two daughters in tow, Ulric relocated to Trinidad. He spent three years in Trinidad before he returned to the US as a Full-Time professor.  MICA was doing a search for a First Year Experience professor and he applied and got the job. His time in Trinidad was memorable because it allowed  him to reconnect with his cultural roots, and started him down his present painting path. After 9 years of being a Full-Time professor at MICA, Ulric  chose to make a move back to self-employment. 

During his time as a full-time professor at MICA Ulric became involved in community work with organizations that worked with inner city kids, in  Baltimore. When Ulric relocated to the North Side, he kept up his community work and has been working with an organization that does outreach in the  Northview Heights neighborhood. This organization gets funding from the Buhl foundation and from 2019 – 2021, Ulric has worked with the kids in the  summer. It began with them making masks with the kids. During the pandemic he created digital drawings of African American heroes for the kids to  color which were well received. 

Now remarried and living on the North Side of Pittsburgh, he makes art and runs a company called ShadoBeni. This is a small Trinidadian Vegan  Restaurant.  Through all the ups and downs that life has brought, Ulric has continued to produce fine art as well as use it as a way to engage with the community.

A Parallel World 

Over the last few years my mind has had to deal with a myriad of emotions. Unwanted ones. All related to the color of my skin. The much-publicized  deaths of black men at the hands of police terrifies me. Not because I am involved in some type of nefarious activity, but because it ultimately comes  down to how you look. And this applies to all aspects of my life. 

Painting is how I digest and unpack these emotions, in a world which I feel only minorities are privy to. I am originally from Trinidad and Tobago, so I  was not raised to feel inferior to anyone. In Trinidad’s history the barbaric deeds of the colonizers during slavery are well documented. It was taught in  school when I was growing up. When Trinidad gained its independence, most of the white folks left the island and we became a nation of black and  brown people. The country’s leaders are all people of color, the business owners are people of color, the teachers are people of color. Being black and  living in the US is a very different experience. I always find myself comparing the two and thinking about what blackness really means. 

In this new body of work, I use basic marks to create the environment in which a story resides. Using the dynamic nature of color, I can create a feeling  of depth and movement in the piece, which I believe helps with the overall meaning. Most of my work is about me unpacking my emotions about  current news events, and sometimes the work may include realistic images or black silhouettes. The images used vary from photos I took, to ones I  found on the web. Ultimately my hope is that the finished piece would open up the viewer to the different emotions these news events conjure up. 

I am personally inspired by the work of Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, Belkis Ayon and the work of the aboriginal people of Australia. As Charles White (African American artist) said: 

“Paint is the only weapon I have with which to fight what I resent. If I could write, I would write about it. If I could talk, I would talk about it. Since I paint,  I must paint about it.”

Website

Instagram

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Short documentary Ulric made about a local Baltimore hero

 

Ulric working in the community with children in Northview Heights. Here is an article about the project

Isaac Pleta