Tiona Nekkia McClodden considers the presence and absence of the Black figure and aesthetic tropes of representation through work traversing film, installation, sculpture, painting, and writing. ---------- “An artist who may be America’s most essential today.” — Siddhartha Mitter, The New York Times ---------- Known for her poignant examinations of biomythography and identity, McClodden uses a research-based approach in her practice as an artist and self-described “historian and cultural custodian.” MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY dissects the many meanings of “masking,” “concealing,” “carrying,” and their opposites, revealing the constant contradiction and harmony between these actions. In this body of work, McClodden creates sculptural meditations on guns—a gold and silver chainmail helmet and a leather molded magazine of an AR15 assault rifle. Through custom lighting, the artist carefully choreographs a performance between the work, space, and viewer. Adding to McClodden’s narrative and psychological concepts, this publication includes a curator’s note from Ebony L. Haynes, a poem by the acclaimed writer and artist Rhea Dillon, and a conversation between the poet Simone White and the artist, as well as a statement penned by McClodden herself.