de’Angelo Dia says his art is like a sermon. He wants you to get something out of it.
Artist and teacher de’Angelo Dia carved creatures into desks and wrote poetry on walls as a kid. His favorite illustrators, Maurice Sendak and Shel Silverstein, unwittingly gave him his first opportunity to discover art.
“I’m a big fan of the book, ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ ” said Dia, 44. “That book inspired me to draw (Sendak’s) creatures in my own cultural reflection. I don’t think I realized that at the time. Now as an adult, when I look back at the experience, I wanted to place my own embodiment on a character like Max.”
Dia grew up in Fayetteville and both of his parents were in the military.
He calls himself a content driven artist, expressing himself through creative writing, performance art, photography, poetry and visual art. He writes daily and reads multiple comic books at a time. He strives to create from a place of reflection, rebellion or radical joy, he said. If not, the art process is lost for him.
“It’s important for me that what I put out has some type of content that they (viewer) don’t just leave the moment feeling good,” he said. “It’s like a sermon, I want people to leave with something they can apply.”
An exhibit at the Mint
A selection of Dia’s characters will be on exhibit in the Mint Museum Uptown’s Constellations CLT. This series of 10 large-scale and three small-scale pieces were created with charcoal and colored chalk while Dia was at Goodyear Arts. They’re like the creatures he drew as a kid.
Each work shows a character suspended in chrysalis, and it’s up to the viewer to determine if they are suspended or emerging, Dia says. These works acknowledge how the children of the African diaspora developed a culture within a culture. The markings on the faces and in the background represent the ingenuity of the children of the diaspora.
“If I had any goal for myself,” Dia said, “it’s how do I write or create visual arts in a manner that gets at the universal truth and doesn’t hold back the discomfort. It nurtures discomfort, yet it remains invitational.”
Once North Carolina moves to Phase 3 in COVID-19 and the museum is open to visitors, the exhibit will be available to view through Jan. 17.
“Dia’s work embodies what I want to see on the walls of a museum,” said Jen Sudul Edwards, chief curator and curator of contemporary art at The Mint Museum. “His drawings are an investigation into the facets and nuances of African-American culture in this country.”
Seeking solidarity, growth
Each of Dia’s experiences provide him with opportunities to grow and “to inform his art,” he says. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Appalachian State University and a masters in liberal studies from UNC Charlotte.
He earned his masters of divinity from Union Presbyterian Seminary and is currently working on his doctoral degree there. He is an ordained minister and serves as the minister of social justice at St. Paul Baptist Church.
He attributes God City, a movement founded by four Black Charlotte artists, for introducing him to the Charlotte art culture and for giving him the encouragement and support he needed as an artist.
“We’re certainly dealing with the same opposition and life in general, being Black and being male in America,” Dia said. “The solidarity was important. A group to decipher how we are processing those experiences. But it was also a space and place for celebration.”
Dia has served as an artist residence at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and Goodyear Arts. He is one of three leaders for the Goodyear Arts Collective, a group of more than 40 GYA artists-in-residence alumni.
“Dia has such a quiet yet powerful stance,” said Amy Herman, co-director of GYA. “When he is listening, you know that he’s hearing you. When he’s talking, he’s so deliberate in his word choice and so eloquent with his delivery that there’s no confusing what he means. I think that’s really important in good leadership.”
Teaching what he’s learned
Dia’s taught language arts for three years at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and for 13 at Trinity Episcopal School. He served as Trinity’s chaplain and dean of community life for the last five years.
He started his first year at Community School of Davidson this month. He’s teaching antiracism, moral influence theory and social justice to high school students in the new EpowerED program. The class will dismantle history through all mediums of art.
This position allows him to embody all parts of his identity.
“I can be the theologian; I can be the artist,” Dia said. “I can be Black. I can be radically Black. This is the first time I have been given that gift.”
More arts coverage
Want to get more arts stories like this delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free “Inside Charlotte Arts” newsletter at charlotteobserver.com/newsletters
You can also join our Facebook group, “Inside Charlotte Arts,” at https://www.facebook.com/groups/insidecharlottearts/