PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For Black History Month, one illustrator is bringing the journey of African American culture to Cherry Street Pier.
Kenneth Thomas, better known as Thomcat23 on Instagram, said the first Africans to come to the United States led a life detached from the cultures they were ripped away from during slavery.
“We had voided a past. And then that past had to be filled with something… And through our song, through our dance, through our work, through our love, through our hate, we created an entire culture and a universe,” Thomas said.
His exhibit, Cosmic Dance, features five illustrations in his unique style to showcase how that new culture came to be. Each piece is paired with a line of poetry that hearkens back to the Transatlantic Passage, the first five lines reading, “In the beginning, there was a rhythm in the darkness.”
The center illustration is of a young boy sitting on his father’s shoulders looking in wonder at the four other pieces of people dancing.
“This center piece actually speaks to all the other pieces because the other pieces created the universe that this child is now looking at and being impressed by,” Thomas said. “What I wanted to do was take pieces that were more about creating than anything. Not necessarily about history, but more like creating a culture, creating an atmosphere.”
And, to make it a more immersive experience, Thomas even let attendees at Friday night’s exhibit try their hand at illustrating.
“By giving people a little bit of the touch of the creative process, they get a sense of what you went through to make something, or what you might go through to create something in the future. And a lot of times, people respect art when they actually can see the process and understand the process by which it’s made,” he said.
Cosmic Dance will be at Cherry Street Pier in Old City throughout February.