Kestin Selwyn Cornwall "Block Series S8 #2"

Kestin Cornwall grew up in the Windsor Ontario area. His father is Grenadian, and his mother is American. He spent much of his youth in Detroit, Michigan with his family. In 2001 he moved to Oakville, Ontario to begin his training at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. While completing the Art Fundamentals and Illustration programs, Cornwall's focus and love for the arts grew quickly. He increasingly combined both classical drawing and painting with modern digital reproduction and screen-printing. In 2006 Cornwall won the CAPIC Best In Show Award. Over the past ten years, Cornwall has focused on creating relevant, progressive art. He has used a varied practice of combining hand drawings, digitally removing the human hand, and then forcing the human element back into the work. Cornwall explores culture and humanity's relationship with beauty, sex, nature, and a long history of cultivation. In addition, Cornwall's work aims to ask questions regarding equality, immigration, and what it means to be black in North America. 

Cornwall uses images to explore the notion that culture, entertainment, including film and other media shape the mass public perception of black people and people of color in North American society. Cornwall critically charts current political, social, and economic landscapes with compositions brimming with references to media, popular culture, music, and art history. He enjoys challenging what's considered "common." He feels it is the duty of an artist to add beauty to the world while invoking the unending social responsibility to capture the thought. Many of his influences include contemporary graphic realism, street art, and old comics, with a complimenting mystery factor, often mirroring timeless depictions of pop culture. Each piece depicts an analysis of our obsession with beauty, age, and change. Kestin Cornwall lives and works in Toronto.