Beatrice Domond Melds Skateboarding and Fine Art in “American Tourist”
“What’s most important to me is my integrity,” Beatrice Domond tells Observer just forty-five minutes before her curatorial debut. She’s the mind behind “American Tourist” at Paul Hill’s Strada gallery on Broome Street in Soho. She’s also a well-known professional skateboarder and to the more niche metropolitan skate community, she represents a necessary shift in the cultural dynamics of skate culture. Her one-day pop-up art show, launched in partnership with clothing brand Stance, was held in celebration of International Go Skate Day, a New York City-based initiative that aims to diversify the sport of skateboarding. “American Tourist” featured an array of artists intentionally picked by Domond for their talent and, in some cases, their involvement in the skate world.
Most city-dwellers are familiar with the often cantankerous and grungy reputation of skateboarding—the messy-haired, baggy-ripped-jeans-wearing frustrated white kid, zooming past commuters on the street and cursing as they barely miss the brake lights of a car making a right turn. But Domond is cheerful and friendly when I greet her, naturally soft-spoken but with firm inflection, thoughtful but never slow to an answer. Her gait is that of a skater—a slight limp because of a healing ACL tear and her feet have a balanced glide as if she’s still rolling on wheels. We are seated on two upside-down milk crates for the interview, diagonally oriented to the first piece of art in the gallery: a vertical collage on acrylic-multicolored wooden panels, Untitled (2020) by “Kids” actor Hamilton Harris.
In the eyes of Domond, skateboarding is more about creative flexibility and nuance than its less-than-favorable associations. “You know it’s a dance, it’s a style,” she tells me. “Everyone has their own technique: like trick selection, how you do your tricks and where and when, how you want your photographer to film it. It’s all art-based.” She goes on to connect her interdisciplinary childhood in Miami, Florida, which was full of activity—basketball, volleyball, painting and soccer—to her eventual love of skateboarding. “When I got into skating, it gave me art and sport… I grew up painting, but I could never sit still long enough, you know? So skateboarding was like two of my favorite things at once, being active and making art.”
Since the beginning of her come-up as one of the only Black women skateboarders to get endorsements from mainstream fashion brands like Supreme and Vans, not to mention a feature in Vogue, Domond has faced a lot of scrutiny from the skate community. In the skate world, successfully “going pro,” as Beatrice has, is pretty rare–akin to having a solo show at a notable museum or gallery in a major city… not necessarily impossible but almost. Search “Beatrice Domond” on Google, and several less-than-flattering YouTube videos pop up citing complaints about her supposed lack of athleticism at best and insults rooted in prejudice at worst. As is often the case in underground art communities but particularly amongst skaters, there’s a common belief that brand deals or sponsorships take away the artistic authenticity of the skateboarder.
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“Integrity,” is how Beatrice responds when asked about how she approaches professional skateboarding. “I don’t do things that compromise my integrity, I do things that align with my integrity. For example, I don’t do brand deals with energy drinks because I don’t believe in them. With Stance, I actually have a relationship with the company. I wear the socks, I like the brand, [gestures to Stance executive Albie Rosario] I call him and we talk on the phone about shoes.”
It might be a fair critique to say that Domond’s commercial accomplishments in the skate world came about due in part to her being one of the only Black woman skateboarders, but it would be wholly inaccurate to make that argument with regard to her sustained success. In a world now as creative as it is distracted, it makes sense that a Black woman skateboarder would turn heads in a Supreme ad placement. But that’s less interesting than what Domond is working on. When I came across one of the hundreds of fliers for “American Tourist” that she spread, via skateboard, around lower Manhattan in the basket of my Citi-bike, my curiosity piqued at the idea of a Black woman skateboarder curating her own art show. That’s the kind of interdisciplinary artistic fluidity Domond executes in her creative collaborations.
Explaining the ‘why’ of the show, Domond speaks candidly about her experiences making her way in the skate world as a Black woman. As a by-product of feeling underrepresented, she was intentional about making her show both artistically and culturally intersectional. “As one of the few—one of the only—Black women skateboarders, I feel it’s my responsibility to give a platform to people from all identities: other Black women, Asian people, queer people, Latinx people; they can all be in my show.”
She says she came up with the title of the show in the back of an Uber on the phone with Stance. “I thought, you know what, we’re all here. We’re all tourists. Even if it’s in New York City or in life. We’re all simply just guests on Earth,” she says. “I feel like the one guarantee in life is that you die. No matter what. You’re coming in, you’re exiting.” It’s that sense of plucking interdisciplinary creatives from across her relational wingspan in the skate world to create a community of “tourists” that became the narrative thread tying the works featured in the exhibition together.
The gallery that hosted “American Tourist” is just down the block from Bowery Park, tucked between two highrises—the sole one-story building on the street. The exhibition’s title was pasted on various stickers in white font scattered across the clear glass entry wall, through which one could see into the one-room, white-walled, rectangular gallery ahead. The show featured the work of eleven artists making art in a range of mediums including collage, paintings, textiles and photography. Several beverage companies provided drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and toward the end of the show, there was free pizza. Between Domond’s skateboard flier distribution and the free drinks, the turnout was incredible. More importantly, the people who showed up mirrored the intersectionality of the featured artists: people from all walks of life, with varying identities and levels of involvement in the skate world. After viewing the art, they congregated on Broome Street, where skaters did tricks for the crowd.
One of the most remarkable pieces in the show is Hamilton Harris’s collage Untitled (2020). The collage—reminiscent of the Pop Art style—depicts four figures pasted onto wooden panels colored in green, yellow, blue and three rustic shades of red with acrylic paint. In an Instagram post from July of last year, he wrote: “This work is a direct result of generational trauma at play. When I made this, I wouldn’t dare speak such views for fear of hurting someone else’s feelings. Being my second framed work, at that point it became clear that I was visually articulating what was stored in my body.” The work’s claim to power through bold colors and the differing pained expression on each figure’s face speaks to the level of talent and integrity Harris possesses as an artist and follows in course with the interdisciplinary thesis of “American Tourist.”
A second remarkable artist worth highlighting is Ranee Henderson, a favorite of Domond’s and one of the most anticipated artists in the show due to her acclaimed portraiture works. One of the two Henderson paintings featured is If you’re Adalia Dawn 3 (2015), a textured oil-based piece in two shades of orange save for the thin blue stripes on the subject’s t-shirt. The subject appears to be a young girl given the narrowness of her shoulders and the elevated perspective; we are looking down at her. The texture of the painting comes from the finger-drawn curls of hair drawn in ringlets surrounding the subject’s head and the raised finger-printed marks making the shape of her face, nose and lips.
A third remarkable piece is Woke up this mornin Pt 1. (2022), which, according to Brooklyn-based contemporary artist Greg Simmons, is an oil on canvas painting of a meme photographed by @victimofcasuality on Instagram. The painting shows the hands of a Black person with a gold ring on their right forefinger pouring Pearl Milling syrup into an empty Aunt Jemima bottle over a tiled kitchen floor. The inspiration to paint this meme arose in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter Movement, when companies like Pearl Millings were attempting to wash their hands of their problematic history to circumvent backlash. The painting illustrates the complexity of these corporate decisions in conversation with the obdurate nature of human routine. The approach to this painting is effortless in the perspective-altering brushstrokes on the edges of the canvas, contrasting its depthful undertones indicated only by the branded white text.
In the face of never-ending attempts to bypass authentic human work to “innovate” the creation of art, gallery shows like Domond’s “American Tourist” exist to prove why the basis of successful art is community. When people from all walks of life are represented in a good space with plentiful refreshments and ample space to connect, it’s clear to see how and why art—both creating it and bonding over it—is imperative to our quality of life. The thesis of “American Tourist” was soundly substantiated by the multi-dimensional integrity of the art and the interdisciplinary human beings who showed up to experience it.
