David Huffman creates “social abstractions,” large-scale paintings combining social and political themes with inventive abstract mark-making. Influenced by progressive Black politics, Afrofuturism, Pop art, basketball, and the television shows Star Trek and Astro Boy, Huffman layers these references to reflect on the African American experience.

In his paintings, Huffman transports us to celestial realms where images of basketballs float like planetary bodies while the circuitous netting of hoop chains grounds his work in the urban environment of his youth. His current work recalls NASA’s Cold War-era space race and Sun Ra’s hypnotic sonic experimentations to envision a world where Black Americans may freely prosper.

Huffman joins crystal am nelson, assistant professor of African Diasporic Visual Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, in a conversation about his almost three-decade-long practice as an artist.