Gameform: Art/Play/Deconstruct
|
Gameform: Art/Play/Deconstruct is a solo exhibition by artist and game designer Diamond E. Beverly-Porter, exploring games as a formal artistic medium. Drawing on the historical and cultural legacies of Black people in the United States through embodied knowledge, Beverly-Porter fuses storytelling, game mechanics, environment design, and digital art as acts of epistemological resistance and Black feminist worldbuilding.
Her work centers Black women and girls as complex protagonists navigating sociopolitical realities, positioning her games and art as living archives of Black cultural production and Afrofuturism. Using play as a critical tool, she challenges reductive narratives and reclaims space for Black peoples’ complexity and joy. Beverly-Porter’s character-driven, richly designed worlds invite audiences to engage with power, identity, and representation in digital spaces. As one of the few Black game developers in the industry, she creates the games she wished existed as a child—immersive spaces for cultural critique and storytelling. An Assistant Professor in the Digital Technology and Culture Department at Washington State University and community arts advocate, Beverly-Porter’s work embodies resistance, creativity, and collective dreaming. Article Link: https://events.wsu.edu/event/exhibition-gameform-art-play-deconstruct-by-diamond-beverly-porter/ |
Treasure Quest ATL, Community-Engaged Interactive Exhibition
Mini canvas Arcylic, ink, pen, wood boxes
|
My contribution to Treasure Quest ATL takes the form of three small, hand-crafted artist boxes built from wood and layered with acrylic, ink, and pen. Each box explores a distinct thematic and visual language, moving between ideas of “good,” “trouble,” the Harlem Renaissance, and cyberpunk aesthetics. Rather than treating these as separate categories, I approached them as overlapping systems of meaning. The “good” and “trouble” motifs function less as opposites and more as fluid moral positions, shaped by context and perspective. Visually, this is expressed through contrasting yet entangled color palettes and mark-making styles, where bright, affirming tones intersect with more chaotic, disruptive textures.
Drawing from Harlem Renaissance design traditions, I incorporated bold silhouettes, rhythmic patterning, and a limited but striking palette to evoke cultural memory, pride, and artistic resistance. These elements are then pushed into a cyberpunk framework, where neon hues, layered linework, and fragmented compositions suggest speculative futures and technological mediation. My work sits in conversation with Quinton’s broader vision of community engagement, using the box as both an object and a site of encounter. The intention is that each piece operates not just as a visual artifact, but as an invitation to reflect on how histories of Black creativity and imagined futures coexist, collide, and reshape how we understand movement, identity, and collective experience. Article Link: https://voyageatl.com/interview/meet-quinton-stephens-treasure-quest-effect-atlanta-beltline/ |
