QAW Resident March 2021
“My work addresses issues of racism and discrimination. I’ve used my artwork as a tool to reveal the experiences many Black individuals face in white America. I embrace discomfort (emotional and situational) in my work by exploring societally-induced aggressions through imagery and text. The guidance of exploring my young Black maleness served as a beginning influence to my work. Now, I am using my craft to express not only my struggles, but the struggles of the Black community often ignored by the majority. Being raised by generations of single Black mothers, my work is heavily influence by Black and queer feminism. I use art as a medium to engage in discussions that are not usually given public engagement due to discomfort; police brutality, microaggression, and exclusion are some of the pin-pricks of culture I’ve managed to explore.”
Detroit-based artist from Atlanta, Georgia, attending his second year at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Dotson is a multi-disciplinary Print Media artist whose practice investigates racism, microaggression and culture through comic book culture and activism in a nonlinear approach. The work of Dotson requires observation and hopefully results in a reaction that prompts self-reflection from the viewers, partly by examining their role as cogs of the “the system” or adapters of a layered reality of systemic racism and anti-blackness. The purpose of his work is to be a reaction to the failure of recognition by creating representations of blackness and its vulnerability and power through his comic “Sandra Blands With Capes Protecting The Black Youth From Police.” The work’s intention is to have the Black community see themselves within the work and realize even with white oppression the Black community does not have to succumb to it. Dotson recreates Black experiences when fantasy intersects. Furthering experimenting with activism along with the tools of art, technology, distribution, interaction, social media, comics and technology.
Queer.Archive.Work 2020 / This website is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
QAW Resident March 2021
“My work addresses issues of racism and discrimination. I’ve used my artwork as a tool to reveal the experiences many Black individuals face in white America. I embrace discomfort (emotional and situational) in my work by exploring societally-induced aggressions through imagery and text. The guidance of exploring my young Black maleness served as a beginning influence to my work. Now, I am using my craft to express not only my struggles, but the struggles of the Black community often ignored by the majority. Being raised by generations of single Black mothers, my work is heavily influence by Black and queer feminism. I use art as a medium to engage in discussions that are not usually given public engagement due to discomfort; police brutality, microaggression, and exclusion are some of the pin-pricks of culture I’ve managed to explore.”
Detroit-based artist from Atlanta, Georgia, attending his second year at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Dotson is a multi-disciplinary Print Media artist whose practice investigates racism, microaggression and culture through comic book culture and activism in a nonlinear approach. The work of Dotson requires observation and hopefully results in a reaction that prompts self-reflection from the viewers, partly by examining their role as cogs of the “the system” or adapters of a layered reality of systemic racism and anti-blackness. The purpose of his work is to be a reaction to the failure of recognition by creating representations of blackness and its vulnerability and power through his comic “Sandra Blands With Capes Protecting The Black Youth From Police.” The work’s intention is to have the Black community see themselves within the work and realize even with white oppression the Black community does not have to succumb to it. Dotson recreates Black experiences when fantasy intersects. Furthering experimenting with activism along with the tools of art, technology, distribution, interaction, social media, comics and technology.
Queer.Archive.Work 2020 / This website is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0