LIGHTSTRUCK PHENOM is Raymar’s debut solo exhibition on view through June 20th.
This series of work is an act of resolution: through the exhibition, Raymar confronts the tension between stillness and avoidance, asking what it means to face what lies within rather than move past it. The work embraces the notion that forward movement often requires direct engagement with discomfort — and that “the only way out is through.”
The concept originates from a guided meditation exercise from college, when asked to visualize a door— an entry point to an unknown space. Raymar encountered a barrier — a door constructed of metal tiles, without a handle, immovable and unresolved. This image became a lasting metaphor for uncertainty, stagnation, and the psychological weight of transition at a pivotal moment in their life.
LIGHTSTRUCK PHENOM invites viewers to reflect on their own moments of pause and transition, and to consider the resources—often already within reach—that make movement forward possible.
“In this exhibition, a layered body of work that honors ancestral histories, contemporary diasporic identity and the human person. The conceptual framework builds on the metaphor of a caravan as both physical and symbolic: a moving community, a vehicle of exchange, and a vessel of memory,” he explains.
As a 2025 Emerging Artist Fellow, Raymar was chosen for his artistic excellence and strong exhibition concept through an open call process and selected by a small professional arts jury.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Raymar is a Detroit-based multidisciplinary artist whose work merges filmmaking, photography, music culture, and performance to explore family, identity, and the creation of alternative visual realities.
Beginning as the eldest sibling documenting home life on early smartphone cameras, he developed a cinematic language rooted in musicality and everyday storytelling—an approach that later led to his home film being featured in his installation 918 during Detroit Design Month 2023.
Influenced by Detroit’s artistic lineage and early inspirations like Beyoncé’s fusion of music, fashion, and visual narrative, Raymar has expanded his practice into fashion films, photo series, projection mapping, music videos, creative direction, and songwriting, crafting imagery that reflects both personal history and forward-looking experimentation.
