Chris Friday
Chris Friday is a multidisciplinary artist and independent curator, based in Miami, FL. Friday’s work explores themes of rest, privacy, and supplementing the archive as a way of advocating and claiming space for Black bodies that are historically excluded from it.
Utilizing the internet as an infinite source of archival samples, she collects iconography from the shared experiences of people of color to construct and preserve alternative historical and personal narratives.
Often incorporating a black-and-white Chalkboard aesthetic, which plays on concepts of learning and teaching, Friday analyzes mainstream media to identify problematic representations and their origins, questions the legitimacy of such perspectives, and imagines possible solutions with her work.
Her portfolio features large-scale works on paper, murals, video, ceramics, projections, photography, comic illustrations, and social practice/activism through curating.
Friday’s work has been included in exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally. Notable group exhibitions include “Narcissist”, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2023) as a part of the Art on the Plaza Residency, “Rest is Power”curated by Deborah Willis and Kira Joy Williams and presented at New York University (2023), and The Cartography Project” presented by the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. (2022). Solo exhibitions include the forthcoming “Where We Never Grow Old”, curated by Rangsook Yoon and presented at Sarasota Art Museum, (2025) “Good Times” curated by Laura Novoa and presented at Oolite Arts, (2023) and One More River, curated by Michael Dickins and presented at Austin Peau State University (2022)
Friday has received numerous awards, fellowships and grants, including being named the South Arts Southern Prize State Fellow for the State of Florida (2023), a Knight Foundation “Knights Champion” grant recipient (2022) , a “The Ellies” Creator award from Oolite Arts (2023 &2021), The GMBCV People's Choice award in Miami Beach's No Vacancy juried art show (2021), and residencies with AIRIE Everglades National Park (2024), Diaspora Vibes Culture Arts Incubator (2024), Oolite Arts, (2023/22), MassMoCA (2023), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2022), and the Visual Arts Residency at Chautauqua Institute (2019).