Photographic Visual Artist Darryl DeAngelo Terrell Announces First Solo Exhibition at Galerie Camille

Galerie Camille is pleased to announce the opening of “I Owe You Nothing, This Is For Me,” the first solo exhibition of Detroit-born artist, writer, curator and DJ Darryl DeAngelo Terrell. By way of an alter ego who goes by “Dion,” Terrell explores what it is to be fat, black, queer and femme. Terrell produces works by way of intimate and often private performances in front of the camera, to engage in a vulnerable conversation around desire, sensuality and sexuality while also thinking of ways to place bodies that are considered “othered” in the center.

Terrell challenges viewers to look and feast upon the body to engage in conversations about desire, what it is and what it looks like. 

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East side Detroit Influences

Influenced by an upbringing on the east side of Detroit, the surroundings included a family filled with dominating women, a community of femmes with a no-nonsense mentality, the legacy of Black, queer writers, artists, and performers such as Sylvester, Luther Vandross, Joseph Beam, Vaginal Davis, Kalup Linzy, Marlon Riggs and Danez Smith. There were also all the dolls, femme-queens, butch queens, drag queens and bimbos they shared space with. 

Terrell pulls references from the black urban aesthetic: wigs, long hair, makeup, luxurious fur coats, ostentatious jewelry, peacock wicker chairs, the finest fabrics and other items that allude to Black, queer opulence. 

A Word From Dion 

Being a big bitch, in a world of small hoes, I exude an energy and identity that don’t completely fit into the Binary, I exist in a void. By way of an alter ego named Dion, I explore what it means to be desired, more than to just fit in, but to feel fucking included, to exist in a place where my body in all of its blackness, queerness, fatness and femme-ness is the norm. 

Dion

Curated by Dalia Reyes, director of contemporary art, “I Owe You Nothing, This Is For Me” is open to the public through Feb. 18.