Aambr Newsome is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans performance, public art, installation, and printmaking, with a central focus on materiality as a gateway to ancestral memory. They investigate the histories embedded in materials tied to the transatlantic slave trade—sugar, cotton, and other crops cultivated through forced labor—exploring their cultural, spiritual, and historical resonance. By engaging with these materials, the artist seeks to unearth the stories and memories they carry, asking: What do our ancestors want to say? What does the land demand of us?

Their process unfolds in the stillness of late-night hours, where they connect with their higher self, becoming a vessel for the messages embedded within these substances. Through sculpture, performance, and site-specific installations, they interrogate labor, exploitation, and the body’s relationship to material goods that once defined entire economies and continue to shape our collective memory. By working with sugar crystals, raw cotton, and other remnants of the plantation economy, they create spaces to honor those who labored, suffered, and resisted.

This material exploration is a spiritual practice as much as it is a creative one. They blend African and Indigenous traditions with Afrofuturist narratives, forging connections between the past and the future. These works seek to reclaim the legacies stolen through enslavement, offering new ways to understand identity, spirituality, and ritual. By working with the very materials that sustained oppressive systems, they aim to shift narratives of race, gender, and value toward liberation and transformation.

In addition to their material focus, their broader body of work addresses systemic inequities like homelessness, economic justice, and the ongoing impact of colonialism. Their current emphasis on installation-performance art invites viewers to confront the weight of history while imagining new futures, guided by the belief that art is one of our most powerful tools for social change. Through their practice, they aspire to unlock the ancestral memory of materials, creating spaces for reclamation, healing, and resistance.

Beyond the Veil 

12’x 12’x 12’

Mixed Media 

2025 

Beyond the Veil is a mixed media based installation that speaks to the relationship between the physical and ancestral realm. The artist utilizes this piece as a sacred tool for shadow work between the spirit world and the present. 

By inviting the ancestors into the gallery, we allow them to be our collaborators in co-curating a sacred space. This acts as a metaphysical offering, allowing them to express themselves by manifesting alive into the work.

The audience also acts as a collaborator, as the work is made from sugar melting more with each person's body heat and breathwork. This makes each viewer implicit in the quiet destruction of these performing sculptures.