Ghanaian American artist Robert Owusu III was born and bred in Yonkers, N.Y., and it’s the place he nonetheless lives and nonetheless maintains a studio.
Owusu’s creative journey started with pictures when he received his first digital camera in his early 20s. That later developed into working in graphic design. Subsequent, he labored with neon lights. Right now, on any given day, he would possibly make a sculpture; assemble a chunk of tremendous artwork; create a sequence of pictures, movies, or digital artwork; redesign the style on a chunk of clothes; or create a sensible wall artwork piece.
“It’s just about a combination of a few issues,” the multidisciplinary artist mentioned, “however general, my normal for the whole lot is just about within the storytelling of it. Every bit that I do all the time has a narrative to inform from the standpoint of my background or my rising up –– it’s all ideas of various issues.”
Fascinated with artists like André 3000, Pharrell Williams, and Kanye West when he was youthful, Owusu got here to the artwork world by his curiosity in music and vogue. It was an expert transfer not instantly welcomed by his household.
Raised in a four-person residence, consisting of his mom, father, and youthful brother, Owusu mentioned his immigrant household upbringing directed him towards a particular method of viewing the world. Each of his dad and mom have been born in Ghana and his prolonged household is scattered all through Connecticut; New Jersey; London, England; and again residence in Ghana.
When he was making ready to attend the College of Hartford in Connecticut, he had no ideas of attending an artwork faculty. “Identical to most of my first-generation [immigrant] counterparts, your dad and mom, nearly all of them, risked their freedom to make a residing in the USA. What they need is the perfect for his or her youngsters; they need stability. Most of my persons are within the medical discipline. They’re doing billing, billing for hospitals, or Medicaid. They find out about stability, they know that [if] you do that quantity of faculty, you’re assured this quantity [of income] in case you purchase a job, et cetera. Anyone [who] goes a unique route [is] probably not offered with open arms.”
After getting into faculty with a declared curiosity in medication, Owusu left with a level in advertising. “For those who actually imagine in what you imagine in, it’s important to go in opposition to the grain throughout the board,” he mentioned. “That may be going in opposition to what the dad and mom need for you, however on the similar time, they’re not out on this planet of newer jobs, the numerous totally different industries which might be being constructed and created in actual time. It’s sort of as much as the person to take a raffle with that.”
Owusu has gambled on artwork. He makes use of totally different artwork mediums to reimagine concepts. It took him three years to determine himself as a working artist, with particular person and brand-name purchasers now reaching out to him underneath his Thiird.co firm identify.
Right now, his artwork is understood due to the totally different merchandise he creates. “Any person may be sporting a garment that I made and folks wish to know who made it, or any person would possibly go into any person’s home and see an artwork piece and so they’re interacting with the piece, and so they would possibly wish to fee one other. It’s all cohesive, proper? Some folks would possibly know me for one factor, and it’d sort of go right into a bunch of different stuff that they didn’t know that I do. It’s sort of like an online. I assume you possibly can say all of it connects.”
That is precisely how Owusu desires to see his artwork functioning. He likes having the ability to mirror on all of the influences that assist him create his artwork and he desires to make artwork that’s inspiring and impacts folks in a number of methods sooner or later.
“I’ll simply just about push the boundaries,” he mentioned. “I believe that particularly now, a variety of artists [work] in several mediums –– whether or not it’s cinematography, or whether or not it’s illustration work. There’s a rising renaissance of multi-hyphen artists who need to have the ability to push boundaries. That’s just about my aim. I simply wish to be at a degree the place I’m capable of get up and do what I wish to do. If I wish to get up someday and do a 60-foot sculpture, I’m ready to take action. Artistic freedom. That’s the trail of artistic freedom that I would like, and I’m just about on the trajectory for that.”
