“In her essay for Frieze Magazine, “Finding Quietness in a Loud World,” poet and critic Harmony Holiday defines Black quietness, in part, as the “antidote to dread in the realm of the senses: no more tyranny, just space to rehearse and re-hear, to pay a deep attention to the calm we have earned and pursued and become.” Holiday outlines Black quiet (aligned with the writings of Kevin Quashie) as a methodology and spiritual practice, almost, within the terrain of the sonic — Black music traditions. This thesis, I believe, is also elastic enough so that we might read the terms of Holiday’s quiet alongside the images created by Texas Isaiah and his sitters. The calm earned and pursued and which we become is a geography of Black pleasure, “rest and repose,” as Harmony calls it. Texas Isaiah maps this landscape joyously. Even as his practice moves across the commercial and editorial or the nebulous parameters of “fine art” photography (a term the artist considers too limiting in scope) — at the time of this writing, the artist has a solo exhibition on view at Jack Tilton Gallery in New York City — his work serves as a balm, an antidote, a space to look and then, look again more closely.” - Jessica Lynne (@lynne_bias) for @seen_journal Images 1-2: Wazi Maret and Adaku Utah in Brooklyn, NY 2021 Zakiya in San Francisco, CA 2021 MoRuf in Los Angeles, CA 2021 Images 5-6: Blu Bone in Minneapolis, 2021 Kaia in San Francisco, CA 2021 Andre D’ Wagner in Brooklyn, NY 2021