Granville Carroll

As I peer into the darkness of space, pondering the origins of existence, I can’t help but feel a sense of surrender. I watch as the universe unfolds, and particles crystallize into matter. The human form disintegrates and merges with the foundational elements of fire and water. Our minds are intertwined with the patterns of life and death, the body slips away. Like a fractal turning upon itself, energy, matter, and consciousness are transmuted repeatedly. The circle mandala is present to remind us of the cyclical and endless formation of devolution and evolution.

Granville Carroll (American b. 1992) is a visual artist and Afrofuturist working with digital technology, poetry, and alternative processes to reshape the world. Carroll’s artwork explores photographic representation and vision to understand the process of existence and interpretation. Simultaneously, he explores and expands ideas around racial blackness to encompass spatial blackness, temporal blackness, and spiritual blackness. Carroll highlights the imaginative qualities of the human mind through world building and storytelling to discover new futures and states of being. At the core of his practice is the investigation into metaphysics and the ontology of self and the universe.

Carroll earned a BFA in photography from Arizona State University in 2018 and a MFA in photography and related media from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020. His work has been shown in the United States and internationally. Most recently his work has appeared at the JKC Gallery in New Jersey, Northlight Gallery and Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona, and in Italy for the Time in Jazz Music Festival. Carroll currently resides in Rochester, NY where he recently completed an artist residency at the Visual Studies Workshop in Fall 2021. Carroll has been named a 2021 Silver List artist and a 2020 Critical Mass Finalist. His work has been published in a variety of physical and online publications, interviews, and features. Most recently his work was published through What Will You Remember, Brink Literary Journal, Lenscratch, Humble Arts Foundation, and Black Is Magazine.