Wave Staff Report
NEW YORK — Black artist, journalist and talk host Rob Redding is introducing a new style of drawing with the release of his book “Graphic Graphite: Bucking as a Challenge to Racial Narrative” June 15.
“I wanted to create a style of drawing that comes from our stories, not from European traditions,” Redding said. “This is a Black method coming from a black sheet of paper and being erased into existence. It is built from the racist record of wrongdoing by white masters, from the voices of enslaved people, and from the parts of our history that many in America refuse to see.”
His new art arrives in “Graphic Graphite” during Juneteenth week and showcases Redding’s original method, constructive expressionism, a technique built on negative space, erasure and viewer participation.
ConEx uses subtraction rather than addition. Redding removes the pencil’s graphite to reveal form, forcing the viewer to complete the image in negative space. The result is a drawing style that is both visual and conceptual, rooted in the idea that absence can speak louder than presence.
Drawing is one of the oldest artistic languages, with its earliest known examples found in Africa more than 70,000 years ago in the ochre markings of Blombos Cave. Scholars say these early patterns show the first use of line, abstraction and symbolic thinking.
Later traditions, including Nok terracotta incisions, Nsibidi symbols, and European graphite drawing, build on that foundation. ConEx adds to this history by using absence, erasure and negative space as active elements. The method requires viewers to complete the image, creating what Redding describes as an “ethical and participatory encounter with the work.”
Redding developed the technique while studying slave narratives that describe the bucking and sexual violence inflicted on Black men during slavery. Instead of illustrating these accounts directly, he created a method that mirrors the gaps, silences, and erasures in the historical record.
“Graphic Graphite” places Redding’s work in conversation with Black artists who have confronted slavery and racial memory, including Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, Hank Willis Thomas, Kerry James Marshall, Fred Wilson and Carrie Mae Weems. But unlike many contemporary approaches, Redding generates new images directly from testimony rather than reworking existing photographs or installations.
The book also challenges how visual art engages with historical trauma. Redding argues that negative space and erasure require the viewer to participate in the meaning of each image, creating what he describes as an ethical encounter with the past.
“You cannot look at these drawings passively,” he said. “You have to complete them. That act of completion is political.”
Redding is an artist, author, and journalist with 18 books, including 11 number one bestsellers. He is the publisher of Redding News Review, an award-winning digital platform recognized for excellence.
His paintings have sold for thousands, and his work spans art, music, and media. He holds dual master’s degrees and focuses on race, memory, and representation. His talk show, “Redding News Review Unrestricted,” is available on his website ReddingNewsReview.com.
“Graphic Graphite” is available on Amazon.
