An Institution, Not a Course

Focusing on artists of the diaspora, Thelonious Stokes brings exposure to a cultural group historically omitted from the western canon we call fine art. By combining mentorship and artistic expression, the Academy distributes seeds of exposure — with a meaningful impact on individual artists and on the broader artistic community.

It is a place of study before it is a place of exchange. What is published here is meant to be read slowly, returned to and argued with. The archive is the institution.

Central to the practice is an inquiry into Blackness as an object that dissolves the veil of gravitational order. For Stokes, Blackness operates not as identity alone but as an atmospheric and stabilised presence that calibrates perception, time and spatial logic.

The performances and images trace this field of intensity — the pressure it exerts, the ruptures it creates, and the possibilities it opens for imagining how bodies move through the world. The Academy is where that inquiry is taught, argued with and continued.

Thelonious Stokes (b. 1995) is a contemporary artist whose practice spans painting, performance and design. His work investigates the relationship between body, history and space, using performance as a vessel to explore collective memory and the social dimensions of art. Through a disciplined and reflective approach, Stokes constructs works that endure beyond spectacle, positioning the body as both witness and medium in the evolving dialogue between art and society.

He is a classically trained oil painter and the first African American to graduate from the Florence Academy of Art.

The Academy teaches from Florence, the former Italian capital and the city where classical method was codified. The Archive and the live programme reach members anywhere; the selective mentorship happens here, in person, in the studio.