2023...
2023
KING COBRA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.
About KING COBRA
KING COBRA, known online as the silicon don, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Since graduating from RISD with an MFA in glass in 2014, COBRA has created corporeal sculptures—utilizing glass alongside silicone, beads, crystals, rubber, synthetic hair, mysterious goo, and other materials—to explore the frequently suppressed and traumatic histories of medical exploitation of the Black body, as well as diseases spread by White Europeans during the transatlantic slave trade. Her most recent solo exhibitions include WHITE MEAT at JTT Gallery, New York (2023), REVOLTED at the New Museum, New York (2022), Pale in Comparison at The SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2022); and Steal Kill and Destroy: A Thief Who Intended Them Maximum Harm at HALLE FÜR KUNST, Steiermark, Austria (2021). In addition to her sculptural practice, COBRA is also a body modifier and filmmaker. Tattoo is an extension of her explorations in flesh, mark making, and the relationship between image and physical pain.
Program Participation
Painters & Sculptors Grant, 2018
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2025
Website / Social Links
As a Black queer neurodivergent thinker, I identify as an agitator both socially and creatively. In addition exploring White violence and disease, other themes in my work include terrorism against Black people by the medical industry, slave ship revolts, sadomasochism, viscera, and ancestral revenge.”
