Evan Haywood is a multifaceted creative force — he just released a new album, owns Ann Arbor-based record label Black Ram Sound and recording studio Black Ram Treehouse, and is the current featured artist at The Deep End Cafe and Gallery in Ypsilanti.
His visual art is full of color, personality, and intricacy, characteristics that are reflected in all that he does.
“The balance between chaos and order — that’s a huge theme in my art,” he says. “I do a lot of intentional and unintentional damage to my pieces to give them the textures I am looking for. Some aspects of my art are very calculated while others are completely based on raw instinct. Just like the life of any person.”
Haywood’s running gallery show titled Smiling Phases embodies that, including mixed-media collages and vibrant acrylic work reflecting upon the connection between “personal identity, social structures, and the digital masks we wear in the age of information.”
“I’m interested in kind of the convergences and divergences of the identities that were assigned versus the identities that we choose,” Haywood says.
The artist has a mission to turn his company Black Ram Sound into a multimedia brand, and similar to The Deep End, he hopes to promote underrepresented artists. So, he felt like the cafe was a good fit to work with and reached out on social media
“A lot of times the people who have the most important things to say have the least amplification for their voices,” Haywood says. “I saw that [The Deep End’s owner] was doing really cool stuff and supporting the same sorts of things I like to support.”
While his art will be hung up and on sale in The Deep End until Aug. 14, a meet and greet will take place at the coffee shop on Saturday, Aug. 5 from 1-4 p.m. The event will be a brunch party, where Haywood says he will be playing some “Jamaican dub music,” chatting with people, and answering questions.
“I want everybody to just come and be their truest self,” he says. “I don’t want it to be too serious or stuffy or anything like that. I just want people to come and have a good time, get a drink, eat some food, check out some art, and just celebrate being alive.”
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