BILLY COLBERT
Billy Colbert
Shorts, 2014
film
duration: 31min, 24 sec
Billy Colbert is a new media art professor at Delaware State University, as well as a professional artist. Colbert started the New Media major at Delaware State University. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Frostburg State University in Graphic Design and his MFA from University of Delaware in Painting. Colbert's work examines cognitive dissonance in popular culture and celebrates the unsung contributors to American culture.
In his current work, Colbert has been using home movies that date back to the late 1920s to re-examine the way people look at black life. This collection of iconography and images provides a counter-narrative to the capricious documentation of black people in print media, television, and motion pictures. The compilation of home videos invites viewers to look beyond the downtrodden public portrayal of the black experience in America to reveal a more complex depiction of work, recreation, and family life in African American communities. Celebrating the ethos of W.E.B. Dubois, these images are a reminder of the richness of black culture and serve as motivation for “leaving the lump” and “inspiring the masses.”