Published on Feb. 11, 2022

To celebrate Black History Month our CASE Marketing interns are highlighting their most influential figures. On this day, Braiden Wade honors American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Hey, I am Braiden Wade, a multimedia specialist for the CASE marketing team. One of my biggest influences in Black history is Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat was an American artist who inspires me to continue being creative in what I do with my podcast work and with videography. Basquiat’s art focused on the Neo-expressionism, wealth versus poverty, inner versus the outer experience, and with the depictions of his paintings. It was really a different type of art for the time that he was in. He used his paintings as a way of social commentary for introspection and also his experiences within the Black community. He also used it to criticize class struggle within his time as well.

Basquiat unfortunately passed away at a very young age, making his artwork more valuable past his death and becoming a lot more famous. So I chose Jean Basquiat because his work took a lot of inspiration from his surroundings the same way that mine does.