There is a very pleasing story about photographer Donald Black Jr. and his desire to be an artist.  At a young age, Black instinctively recognized there was something missing from art world in Cleveland. He felt disconnected from art because he didn’t see himself in the works that surrounded him.  Black often wondered where was the art that represented the world in which he was experiencing – a world filled with dysfunction and beauty as it relates to being black.  This seemingly haunting instinct and disconnection would follow Black upon graduating from Cleveland School of the Arts in 1998, and throughout his studies at Ohio University where he studied commercial photography.  During his senior year at Ohio University, a closed friend asked Black the following: “Do you see yourself or where you come from in your work?” The question forced Black to face his childhood thoughts about the links between art and self-discovery.  Instantly, it all connected for Black. In response, he went to the local hardware store and purchased four feet of metal chain – an object (along with bars and cages) that would serve as a reoccurring symbol in his work to represent imprisonment, captivity and the desire to be free.  In 2007, Black was awarded third place in Nikon’s International Competition for his photograph, “Self-Imprisonment”.  Black spent five years living in New York after his years at Ohio University.  In New York, he discovered there was still a striking absence in his work.  His attraction to permanency, history, legend and black culture is what returned Black to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.  Returning home has positioned Black to reunite with all things familiar and imperative to him.  He is most concerned with creating art that reveals truth and fills the voids he experienced as a child.