Dozier

Featured Artist Of The Week: TODGI DOZIER, An Artist That Evokes Emotion

DURHAM, NC- Artistic expression is essential to documenting human experience and culture. Both create thought, and true thought evokes emotion. 

Dozier
Todgi Dozier

Todgi Dozier is an artist who looks to do both. “I often want to create think pieces. In my opinion, there’s no right or wrong in art,” said Dozier, and she’s right. That’s one of the reasons Dozier was selected as Spectacular Magazine Featured Artist of the Week.

Todgi J. Dozier is a 30-year-old native of Rocky Mount, NC. She is an alumna of North Carolina A&T SU and North Carolina State University.  Todgi has both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture and remains passionate about saving the earth through her studies.  Ultimately though, she decided to pursue her true dream of becoming a visual artist.  

Todgi has been featured on platforms such as The Shade Room and Natural Hair Loves, and she has even hand-painted props for the award-winning Blue & Gold Marching Machine.

In art, there is no right or wrong, it is a portrayal of an individual’s belief of their reality. For Black people, that reality though varies from person to person, is unique.

There is no ‘one size fits for the Black experience, but I like to believe most of us have been sectioned into categories for so long that we relate to one another. 

Bonds forged in not just trauma, but history, ancestry, and even slang.

Two of Dozier’s paintings (submitted)

An even deeper opportunity for relativity lies here in Durham. 

A city with such a rich Black history, such as Hayti, NC Central, and Hillside high. For this reason, I believe Dozier’s art is essential to Bull City. 

In Durham, our experiences and culture are put into the counterproductive images of ‘ghetto’ or unruly.  Dozier does not run from the Blackness of her art. 

“I do create a lot of pieces related to black culture. I love being Black, so I hope that pieces I create make others just as proud to be black and beautiful despite the world’s opinions and tragedies.”

Dozier’s actions reflect her statements.

Her Instagram page, link here, is riddled with pieces of awe-inspiring works of art. Her piece “ANCESTORY” is admirable, aesthetically pleasing, beautifully constructed, and powerful. It is the classic Black power fist decorated with chains around its wrist and distinct color schemes on each finger. 

Todgi Dozier’s virtual art museum, The Black Onion, brings a fresh pop of flavor to the visual arts. (submitted)

When I look at the piece now, I Immediately am drawn to something Dozier said. “When I first started, I was trying to find my lane and what I wanted to say…all these powerful messages without stepping on toes. Now, I don’t mind stomping on toes.”

Stomp she does. 

I implore anyone reading this to explore her virtual art museum The Black Onion.  statement on the about page says, “The Black Onion’s name derives from cultures globally using onions to flavor, season, and enhance palettes. The Black Onion offers to bring the same fresh pop of flavor to the Visual Arts.”

The name even is so multilayered that I just smile and nod in agreeance because there is not a better way to describe what she creates. The enhancement of palettes, minds, and reality. 

Is that not what art is? An enhancement of the realities we live in. To isolate our minds enough to access things our subconscious has suppressed. 

To quote a talented artist, “Evoke Emotions.”