On Thursday, February 13th, the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities hosted a conversation with Baltimore-based artist Jeffrey Kent, MFA, and curator, Carol Rhodes Dyson, MFA, in conjunction with the exhibit “Jeffrey Kent: Recovering Secrets” currently on display at the Fulginiti Pavilion Gallery.
Arts and Humanities Program Director Katie Rhine, PhD, introduced the two visiting speakers and framed the conversation as reflecting the Arts and Humanities Program's commitment to exploring how the arts can deepen our understanding of health, justice and human dignity.
Rhodes Dyson, the curator for the “Recovering Secrets” exhibit as well as being the curator for Busboys and Poets, the socially conscious DC-based chain of restaurants, kicked off the conversation by speaking to the power of visual arts. “Visual arts have incited wars. They incited violence. They've erased legacies and dictated beauty. They've celebrated heroes and encouraged social change through personal transformation.”
For artists like Jeffrey Kent, they are also a keeper of secrets that he is poised to share.
Heading Down the Wrong Path
Born and raised in Baltimore, Kent described his early life as “a cliche of a young black man in the inner city, [a] single parent who got in with the wrong crowd.” His trajectory abruptly changed when he was arrested for cocaine distribution and possession in 1988. “When I got arrested, I had a job. I wasn't just out on the corner selling coke. I was selling coke to lawyers, doctors, accountants, people that were professionals.” Kent, whose creative inclinations first took the form of an aspiring fashion designer, had been working in merchandising and men’s clothing for department stores like Macy’s.
While he escaped incarceration thanks to a great lawyer, Kent—who suddenly found himself unemployed—continued selling drugs out of an apartment overlooking a park near Johns Hopkins. Wanting his place to reflect his vision and style, Kent had been collecting vintage furniture from thrift stores. “But I didn't have any art. I knew what I wanted, and I knew I couldn't afford it. I decided I would go to the art store buy some paint and some canvas, since I had all this extra time now in the apartment selling drugs, and that's why I started painting.”
The Artist Within
Kent’s arrest became the defining moment that unleashed the artist inside him. His work frequently engages with the criminal justice system. Early pieces incorporate police badges, which reflect being arrested during the height of the war on drugs—a system he critiques as an industrialized means of incarceration.
“It's a major industry to put people in prison,” he said. “Some of us in here make money off of it without even knowing, possibly with your 401K.”
Initially self-taught, he immersed himself in artistic creation before pursuing formal education at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where he earned his MFA despite not having a traditional undergraduate degree.
Kent’s work is fiercely personal, often described as a “pictorial memoir.” One of his signature series, “Hidden Secrets,” features off-white paintings embedded with diamond dust and glitter from Colombia, mimicking the visual texture of crack cocaine. “I added diamond dust specifically because diamond dust sounds very expensive,” Kent said, “but it's a thing by Home Depot and Google, like 12 bucks or six bucks or so, which also points to the factor of the type of value that's put on something that's harmful to myself, like I did when I was a crack addict.” Crack cocaine is a substance of many dimensions, simultaneously a source of both pleasure and pain that can be sought after, destructive, and counterfeit.
In “The N Word,” Kent examines the hypocrisy in media censorship he experienced watching TV as a child—profanity was censored, yet graphic violence was freely broadcast. Kent’s paintings challenge these contradictions, urging viewers to reconsider societal norms.
Honoring Henrietta Lacks
Kent’s artistic practice intersects deeply with healthcare and medical ethics. Inspired by Harriet Washington’s book “Medical Apartheid,” he created “Surface from Under the Microscope: The Henrietta Lacks Series,” which premiered at a National Academy of Sciences Gallery in 2019. Lacks was a Black woman from Baltimore whose cells were taken by health professionals at Johns Hopkins—the same institution Kent could see from his post-arrest apartment--without her consent. Known as HeLa cells, they soon became widely used in groundbreaking medical research as the first immortal human cell line. The cells provided a critical foundation for countless medical advances over the last 75 years, including cancer treatments and development of the Covid-19 vaccine. Kent began his series of HeLa cell “action paintings” in 2011 to commemorate the woman behind the cell line.
“It was important for me to do this is because of the theft, for lack of a better word, of these cells, without any approval or conditions of the family, who never knew about her cells even being used.”
Kent’s abstract representations of HeLa cells are not just about honoring Lacks but also about exposing the exploitative history of medical research on Black Americans. Using science as inspiration, Kent incorporates elements of cellular mitosis and biological structures. The images suggest the connections between art, science, and ethical considerations; elements which are constantly moving and changing in the healthcare landscape.
"A Positive to Every Negative"
Curator Dyson Rhodes concluded by asking Kent about legacy and his role as an artist in the Baltimore community. Emphasizing the role of art in healing, both personally and collectively, Kent credits art with saving his life. Like a turnout on railway tracks, his life abruptly veered away from careening deeper into addiction onto a track that steadily led to healing, creative growth, and national recognition.
"I believe there's a positive to every negative. I was like, this is the worst thing that happened. My life is over, and it changed my lifestyle. If I didn't get arrested, I would not be sitting here. I know this for a fact.”
Kent now mentors younger artists, fostering a creative community of new Baltimore talent with their own stories to tell. In addition to teaching at MICA from 2021-2023, Kent has founded or co-founded numerous studio and retail art spaces over the last two decades, most recently BLIFTD STVDIOS PROJECT, Connect + Collect, and Accomplished Art Apprentices. His legacy will not only be his own body of work but also the careers he has helped shape.
Kent’s raw honesty in this conversation underscored his passion for the visual arts as a medium for reflection, healing, and sparking complicated conversations. The presence of his art at CU Anschutz is more than just an exhibition—it’s an invitation to confront uncomfortable truths and appreciate the layers we all have beneath the surface.
“Jeffrey Kent: Recovering Secrets” is on display at the CU Anschutz Art Gallery at the Fulginiti through June 26th. Exhibit is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 11:30-5:00 pm.
The artist conversation event was made possible with generous support from the Henry and Janet Claman Endowed Professorship in the Medical Humanities.