Chicago-based artist Dwight White II says he was always interested in and excited about art — but growing up in suburban Houston, his focus was on the gridiron.
“Football in Houston is like a religion,” White said. “So for me, football was my life. I went to school, and I trained a lot. I loved the game, but I also loved what the game could possibly do for me. Art was always like, I think from a very young age, even when I was like in elementary school, it was always an interest. I used to get really excited about it. I never saw art at that point as something that was a career. Going to high school in a Texas suburb, you don’t see a lot of art.”
After White played football throughout his childhood and in college for Northwestern University, an on-the-field injury in 2014 revealed he was born with only one kidney.
“I was hardheaded,” White said, “so I was like, we’ll put a protective pad there, we’ll figure it out. A week later I got hit in the same spot and it caused bleeding. At that point, I was OK. I don’t know if I can play with my life here.”
Artist Dwight White II has curated three Juneteenth events this year. (WTTW News)
Suddenly, the young man who had made football the centerpiece of his entire life had to pivot, which he said was a “dark time” for him mentally and emotionally.
“It was just question marks in my head, and it was like, what to do next?” White said. “I didn’t know how to communicate, almost, because what I started my day and ended my day with every single day for the past 15 years was football. And I eventually started learning how to, like, use other tools like art to start communicating again. After graduation, I realized there was an opportunity to at least start pursuing it. I started recognizing opportunities in Chicago. I was in the underground arts community. I was doing live painting. I was doing huge events like Activate Chicago. That was kind of the transition for me … when I realized that this could actually be a career path of mine.”
Since then, White has created a thriving career in the visual arts.
“My whole being as an artist is like a trial and error thing,” he said. “I range from, you know, portraiture all the way to abstraction. It could be pretty fine art all the way to street art. Me painting people a lot of times is because I’m just trying to connect to an emotion. I have a lot of color and different elements and spontaneousness into the pieces because … those are based on all other feelings that aren’t so literal to the human face.”
In 2020, he added event curation to his roster, with cultural celebrations centered on the Juneteenth holiday called “Something I Can Feel.”
(Courtesy of Dwight White II)
“For me, it was born out of a celebration of … Black creativity,” White said. “When I thought about Juneteenth during 2020, I saw it not necessarily being celebrated in Chicago. It was more so there was an awareness around Juneteenth and what the holiday was. But all the activating I saw around it were marches and kind of like making sure our voices were heard, talking about our struggle, which, you have to talk about all those things, right? But the one thing I didn’t see a lot of was the celebration of our culture. Being an artist, thinking about how colorful of a holiday it was back in Houston, Texas, I felt like Chicago deserved that same energy.”
This year’s events encompass a mural activation (June 19), a gala evening (June 24) and an artist celebration day party (June 25).
“I just want people to feel, to be seen, to be heard and then also to be celebrated. I just want people to know that, like, I’m trying to serve my community and I’m going to continue to show up for them. And I want them to show up for these experiences and find joy.”
