Through his research-driven practice, Jamal Cyrus explores African American identity in relation to Black political movements, the African diaspora, and social injustice. Using found materials in collage, assemblage, sculpture, and performance, he makes connections across time and space—from Ancient Egypt to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s—to subtly reference historical omissions while illuminating the enduring transcendence of Black culture. 

Singer in the Temple Interior features shredded strips of denim that are laboriously reassembled by hand, as a textile-based homage to the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and the tradition of Asante kente cloth-making in West Africa. The title alludes to an inscription on the coffin of the ancient Egyptian singer-priestess Meresamun (ca. 800 b.c.). The elongated black shape near the center, against the white ground, is an abstraction of a wig originally depicted in an Egyptian hieroglyph of women singing. The horizontal lines of white denim recall the process of mummification, in which the deceased’s body was wrapped in bands of linen. Shells dot the fibers of Cyrus’s work and reflect the custom of embellishing Black women’s hair with natural adornments. 

The title Singer in the Temple Interior responds to the 1962 song “Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come” by jazz pianist and poet Cecil Taylor (1929–2018) and to legendary singer Aretha Franklin (1942–2018), who often performed in churches—a modern-day “temple singer.” Known for her iconic style, including wearing bouffant wigs, Franklin was also active in the Civil Rights Movement, lending her powerful voice to the fight for social justice. Cyrus’s work layers meaning through ordinary materials rich with historical referents and imbued with cultural narratives.

About the artist: Jamal Cyrus (b. 1973, Houston, TX) received his BFA from the University of Houston in 2004 and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, where he studied with Terry Adkins. In 2005, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and in 2010, he was an Artist in Residence at Artpace San Antonio. He was a founding member of Otabenga Jones & Associates, an artist collective active in Houston from 2002 to 2017. 

Cyrus’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including a 2021 mid-career survey at the Blaffer Museum of Art and the University Museum at Texas Southern University, Houston. Cyrus’s work has been recognized by various awards, including a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2009), the BMW Art Journey travel grant (2018), the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Prize (2020) and, most recently, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2023). The artist’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among others. Cyrus lives and works in Houston.