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Rashaun Rucker is One of Axios' Black Artists You Should Know

March 2nd, 2023

Rashaun Rucker, Black Love at the Country Fair, Linocut print, 24 x 36 inches. Courtesy the artist and M Contemporary Art. Photo: Roy Feldman

Axios recently featured a list of Black artists to watch in 2023, and one of the artists included was Rashaun Rucker. The featured artwork was recently on view at M Contemporary gallery for Rucker’s 2021 solo exhibition, Up From the Red Clay.

Rucker makes photographs, prints, and drawings and has won more than 40 national and state awards for his work. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), M Contemporary, Art League Houston, the University of Michigan Institute of Humanities, and Trout Museum of Art, among others.

In 2008 Rucker became the first African American to be named Michigan Press Photographer of the Year. He also won a national Emmy Award in 2008 for documentary photography on the pit bull culture in Detroit. Rucker was a Maynard Fellow at Harvard in 2009 and a Hearst visiting professional in the journalism department at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013. In 2014 Rucker was awarded an artist residency at the Red Bull House of Art. In 2016 Rucker was honored as a Modern Man by Black Enterprise magazine. In 2017 Rucker created the original artwork for the critically acclaimed Detroit Free Press documentary “12th and Clairmount”. His work was recently featured in HBO’s celebrated series “Random Acts of Flyness” and “Native Son”. In 2019 Rucker was awarded the Red Bull Arts Detroit micro-grant and was named a Kresge Arts Fellow for his drawing practice. In 2020 he was named A Sustainable Arts Foundation awardee. Rucker was a 2021 Resident at the International Studios and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, New York, and a Mellon Fellow at the University of Michigan Institute of Humanities. In 2021, he was awarded a Visual Arts Grant by the Harpo Foundation.

Learn more:

1 🎨 thing: Some Black artists you should know – Axios

Up From the Red Clay – M Contemporary

Rashaun Rucker’s Solo Exhibition at MOCAD Reflects on Relationships, Communities That Impacted His Journey

Print Media at Cranbrook Academy of Art