Conversations with Contemporary Artists: Tyler Mitchell and Imani Perry

Tyler Mitchell (born 1995, Atlanta) is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker who lives and works in Brooklyn. He burst onto the national stage in 2018 when he became the first Black photographer to have his work featured on the cover of US Vogue Magazine: a celebrated portrait of Beyonce. Across his creative practice, Mitchell’s images lyrically present Black beauty and desire, carefully emphasizing empowerment, play, and self-determination. Mitchell’s work is held in numerous private and public collections including the High Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Detroit Institute of the Arts, FOAM (Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam); Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pizzuti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; and Cleveland Museum of Art. He received his bachelor of arts in film and television from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Imani Perry is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer who lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is currently the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University; a Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and a columnist for The Atlantic. Her work centers on providing fresh context to African American social conditions and experiences along dimensions of race, gender, and politics. Perry won the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction for her 2022 work, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. She received a BA from Yale University, a PhD from Harvard University, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center.

Maria L. Kelly is the Assistant Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art. Maria was the curatorial assistant in the High’s Photography Department from 2011 to 2016, returning to the role in 2019 after completing her master’s degree. During her time at the High, Maria has helped organize more than twenty-five photography installations, including exhibitions featuring the work of Helen Levitt, Abelardo Morell, Sheila Pree Bright, Wynn Bullock, Gordon Parks, and Thomas Struth, among others. Maria holds an MA from Columbia University and a BA from the University of Georgia, both in art history.