Thomias Radin I saw you in my dream, 2024

Thomias Radin's I saw you in my dream, is a star-shaped oil painting on wood. At its center is the top of a person's head, which is braided into intricate, winding cornrows. Beyond the figure, there is a blue sky. Purposely leaving parts of the primed wood white, Radin suggests an image that is perhaps a fragment or a memory of a larger story.

The artist chose to focus on this particular African hairstyle for both the history that cornrows have—for example, as a means with which to hide maps to help guide enslaved peoples to freedom—and for the contemporary cultural struggles around African hairstyles. Growing up, Radin was discouraged by his own parents to wear cornrows as they were seen as less professional than hair that mimicked that of white Europeans. In this way, the artist speaks both specifically about Black hair and uses hair as a metaphor for finding one's way by going back to one's roots.

Throughout Radin's work, postcolonial themes and those of identity are central, as one sees in this painting. A similar star-shaped work was first exhibited at Kindl Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin (Poly. A Fluid Show, 2023), where it symbolized something akin to a guiding star that led viewers into the group exhibition.