At first glance, the acrylic sculptures of multidisciplinary artist Damien Davis might appear to some as inscrutable, amorphous forms. But look closer and they come to life as pieces of a visual lexicon constructed by the Brooklyn artist to chart the ways in which global “cultures code and decode representations of Blackness.” 

In “Searching,” Davis’s fluorescent laser cuts are beacons in a blacked-out gallery, inviting viewers to engage with the multitudes of his representation of Blackness. Viewers comb a darkroom with blacklights in their own “forensic search” refrencing police surveillance and the invasion of Black lives, discovering the artist’s representations of queerness, loneliness, intimacy, and identity.