Adam Davis, Brothers in Life & the Arena, 2026. Wheat paste installation on the exterior facade of Tulsa Artist Fellowship Studios, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Photograph by Dan Farnum. Courtesy of Tulsa Artist Fellowship
ADAM DAVIS
BROTHERS IN LIFE & THE ARENA
Through December 30, 2026
Tulsa Artist Fellowship
Studios Façade | 109 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Tulsa, OK 74103
The second installation of Projection is by Tulsa Artist Fellow Adam Davis, whose photographic practice centers Black portraiture, with a particular interest in Black rodeo and Western culture. Davis creates portraits grounded in sustained relationships with his subjects and the communities and places he documents.
In Brothers in Life & the Arena, twin brothers Trevor and Trenton Whayne stand with their arms locked, a taxidermied goat behind them, gazing directly into the lens. Wearing cowboy hats, ropes, and belt buckles, they meet the viewer with confidence and ease. An ornamental frame surrounding the image further emphasizes the tintype’s sense of timelessness.
Davis presents the portrait as part of his larger Black Magic legacy photography project, an ongoing effort to create the largest contemporary archive of African American and global diasporic tintype portraits. During his tenure at Tulsa Artist Fellowship, he has documented the Black rodeo community while exploring mutual aid, multigenerational cultural knowledge, land stewardship, and religious practices.
The selection of Davis’ work reflects Projection’s broader interest in what we choose to make visible through art in public space. His portrait expands representations of Black Western life, presenting Trevor and Trenton through a lens of family, tradition, skill, and tenderness while bringing the history and culture of Black rodeo into Tulsa’s public landscape.
The installation also extends Projection’s experimentation with scale and medium. Davis’ first large-scale outdoor installation translates the intimate qualities of the tintype into a monumental image, asking what becomes possible when images of Black life, culture, and possibility are given space to be seen.
Courtesy of artist and Tulsa Artist Fellow Adam Davis.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Adam Davis is a photographer and filmmaker from Brooklyn, New York, currently based in Tulsa as a Tulsa Artist Fellow. His practice centers photography as a means of building community, preserving histories, and expanding representations of Black life.
Davis began Black Magic while living in Los Angeles, developing an ambitious tintype portrait project documenting Black Americans and the global African diaspora. Since relocating to Oklahoma, his work has increasingly engaged the histories and contemporary communities of the American West, with particular attention to Black riders, rodeo families, and Western culture.
