Kori Price is one of those rare creatures with full control over both sides of her brain. By day, she is an electrical engineer educated at Virginia Tech. In her off hours, she is a writer and mixed-media artist. In January 2022, she put on her first solo exhibition, “You can’t compromise my joy,” at New City Arts. She is a founding member of the Black Artists Collective, a new board member at New City Arts, and the host of “Creative Mornings,” a breakfast series for local artists. We chatted about the past and future of her creative work.
Made in C-VILLE: It’s unusual to meet someone with a talent for both the scientific and the artistic. How did that come about? Can you tell me about your self-discovery as a creative?
Kori Price: I’ve always loved crafts and arts and that sort of thing, even as a kid. So, even as I found myself pursuing more technical things in school, I was still in band. I played the contra-alto clarinet for four or five years—a really tall, outrageous, low clarinet. I also loved art. My dad had cameras, so I would pick up his cameras and try to take pictures. I’m terrible at sketching, but I would try to sketch. I started writing a book in high school. I would just dabble in all of these different things.
In college, as I pursued my electrical engineering degree, I just stayed around creative people. That’s what helped me journey closer to a life as a creative. I might have had more arts-focused friends in college than I had engineering friends. While my engineering friends were off doing projects with Arduinos, microprocessors, or circuit design, I was writing short stories. I was in the concert band and the marching band. I bought my first DSLR and started taking photos for friends.
So I think because I’ve always had this curiosity about art, as an adult, it just felt right to pursue a career as an artist alongside my career as an electrical engineer. I just want to explore the work that I can do, the things that I can make.
You work in such a diversity of forms as an artist. Is there a central set of themes that holds your work together?
There are a few themes that I really enjoy. One is Black womanhood. That’s a pretty central theme, and it’s something I want to keep exploring and expanding on. I also love making work that creates a liminal space. I love making work that’s ethereal, that sends shivers down your spine, that makes you feel like there’s a presence in the room, so to speak.
A lot of it is rooted in conversations with folks about things as wild as particle physics and quantum mechanics as well as people’s experiences with their spirituality or their experiences with folks who have passed on, with their ancestors. I take two things that contrast—like hard science vs. spirituality—and try to show that they don’t have to be separate. There are places where they blend and they merge.
You recently had your first solo exhibition, ‘You can’t compromise
my joy,’ which we wrote about in C-VILLE Weekly. Tell me about that experience. What came out of that for you?
The biggest thing for me is just the confidence that I gained. I don’t know who has put this in our minds, but it feels like you have to have a solo show in order to be an artist. I know in my head that’s not right, but this show still gave me that confidence. Look what I did! Look what I accomplished! I planned and executed on an idea that had just been images in my head. I translated those ideas into reality.
But hearing people’s reaction was important, too. In my work, I want people to be part of the show. I want them to be present in it.
I had this twisted hair fringe at the front, which I titled ‘Did you just touch my hair?’ I wanted to make it clear that once you come through those twists—you couldn’t see through the gallery wall or the window, because there was a wall of hair there—you were in a Black woman’s headspace. You kind of intruded in, you parted through the hair. That resonated with people. They felt it. They left notes in the book that brought me to tears, because it had really translated. I think that’s the one of the most important things that an artist can do, to get people to feel.
So, it was just good to know that I could do it. Now I’m challenging myself. What else can I do? What more can I do? What’s next?
So what is next?
I’m sort of in an exploratory mode. I’m focusing right now on finishing a book I’ve been writing. I don’t have a title yet, but it’s a fantasy/science fiction series that I’d like to write. I’ve written the first book; I’m in the process of editing it now. It’s a young adult book. I’ve been writing it for a long time and things are finally solidifying, which is great.
In the photography realm, I’m working with a couple of ideas. The first idea is about our relationship to our ancestors. That’s another liminal space. Just like night and day exist at the same time at dusk and dawn, why can’t life and death exist in the same place or the same space? That’s my core idea, the core metaphor that I’m working with. I’ve created a few images from that which were recently on display at Studio IX. I’ll post them on my website soon.
I’m also going back to the theme of Black womanhood. I want to experiment with mixing weaving and photography to create personas of different Black women, and celebrating particular African-American names—your Keisha, your LaQuanda, your LaToya, those names that are so unique to African American culture. I want to find a way to bring those women to life.