We are pleased to present Resilience Beyond Refusal, a solo booth of recent works by Reginald Sylvester II. Questioning his position as an artist in a time of moral crises, Sylvester seeks to integrate his personal politics within his art practice to create work that is rooted in social realities and guided by his spirituality. These recent works feature experiments with new materials, including rope, ex-military material, and rubber. Like assemblage artists before him, Sylvester is interested in the tactility of these materials and the histories they signify, thereby moving beyond painting into the realm of object-making.

A new form of painterly objects for the artist, the Offering works are made of rubber which is sliced in curves to reveal the canvas' frame. Developing from his interest in Readymades, Sylvester began utilizing rubber roofing and through a conversation with his father learned how the industrialization of the rubber-making process led to violence against the indigenous and black populations of the Congo. The harsh beauty of these works is in tension with the history of their materiality. They are a reflection on commerce's violent edge which so often touches black and brown communities; they stand as acts of remembrance.