By Tia Brown

Edreys Wajed is a lifetime creative. I know this because I am a lifetime observer of his creative life.

In high school, I saw Edreys Wajed reading at Em Tea Coffee Cup. In college, I followed his music moves as Billy Drease Williams. For the past decade, I watched his rise as one of the primary artistic guardians of Buffalo, New York. Whatever vein you have experienced him in, his influence is not to be understated. Wajed has transitioned through several crafts and artistic media throughout his life as a visual artist, jewelry maker, craftsman, musician, graphic designer and educator.

His show, Diaphanous, opened at Halls on September 13, 2024. 

In an interview Wajed said, “my main thing is the show is an expansion of the course of nine years or something. Alexa (co-founder of Eat Off Art, and Wajed’s wife) said it looks like it’s artwork by six different people.” 

Wajed said “Diaphanous” includes “dozens of drawings rendered over the past five years, a collaged (but silent) compilation of music video clips, and a new 50-foot wall painting designed specifically for Hallwalls’ gallery space.” 

Wajed describes many of his pieces as electric portraits of music and motion. This is best communicated through a wall of Black icons from Prince to Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley to Marvin Gaye. A young Michael in his fullness, an Aretha mid-song. The portrayals are evocative, and each portrait features a series of stacked lines that compels the audience to look and listen longer.

Though the exhibit is silent, Wajed’s pieces are filled with sound; his paintings are especially loud. The swiftness in strokes, the size and the vibrancy creates a catalyst of expression and a sort of sonic synthesis (unless you’re a 5 on the aphantasia scale.) 

Wajed’s marks stylistically evoke the piano playing of Thelonious Monk suggesting that if anything seems random, it isn’t. These paintings exist at an intersection of formal composition and innovative authenticity which gently push the audience into a safe emotional space.

There is also something present in “Diaphonous” that does not get a spotlight these days – joy. As a great collective, we have been witnesses to the weight of the world that is not easily verbalized. Both in the macro and the micro sense of things. Buffalonians could use some joy.

At the opening, a DJ spun back-to-back cookout classics. A unanimous frequency of love and support ran throughout reverberating in the walls of the gallery. People embraced each other as if they were embracing the entire weight of their lifetimes and those journeys together.

Near the entrance of the exhibition, a collage of hip hop music videos by some of the indisputable greats, like Nas and Rakim, play on loop exemplifying not only the inspiration that has shaped the artist but also feeds into the inspiration he himself has become.

“I would like to say our work should change over time because of evolution … We do change but we are the same person.” said Wajed. 

Wajed’s art is unpretentious because he is not a gatekeeper, but rather an artistic guardian who invests the work with prayer. Wajed explained that each day of work another brick laid and he honors both prayer and practice because both are necessary.

Wajed’s final words to me were that he hopes the show encourages people to grow and not be stuck as one thing.

Check out “Diaphonous” on display through October 25.

Tia Brown is a local writer and a contributor to The Buffalo Hive. They are the former editor of Utterance and their work has been featured in One for One Thousand, CivicScience, truthout, and Qween City. They currently live in their hometown Buffalo, New York though they have always hated the snow.