A chat with St. Petersburg artist Jabari Reed-Diop, a.k.a. iBOMS - Tampa Bay Times

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St. Petersburg native Jabari Reed-Diop, known professionally as iBOMS, is a rising star in Tampa Bay. Since coming on the art scene in 2018, he’s gained more than 7,000 followers on social media, designed a print for the Tampa Bay Rays Artist Print series in 2019, sold many artworks in gallery shows and online and painted a mural as part of the Shine Mural Festival in 2020.

His bold, cartoon style characters reflect his own experiences as a young African American male. Early on, he used them to address topics like racism, consumption of violence and materialism.

But recently, Reed-Diop, 21, went through a coming of age transition and embarked on a completely new body of work that he exhibited in his solo exhibition at Mize Gallery, “Ego Death.”

A piece from iBoms (Jabari Reed) is on display in his solo exhibition, "Ego Death," at Mize Gallery. [ Courtesy of Chad Mize ]

His journey of self-discovery led him to focus on an emotional awareness that he gained by checking his ego.

He created two characters with mushrooms for heads that represent duality. “Ego” represents his exterior, while “Ego Death” represents a more spiritual, enlightened, emotionally connected side.

The candy-colored paintings depict transcendence and lots of flowers, both painted and in collage.

"Star Gazing" by Jabari Reed-Diop, a.k.a. iBOMS, was part of his sold out exhibition, "Ego Death" at Mize Gallery in St. Petersburg. [ Courtesy of Chad Mize ]

The show sold out, a first for Reed-Diop and for the gallery.

Bay magazine caught up with iBOMS to talk about this recent transition, how it feels to sell out a show and what’s next.

You recently shifted your style. Talk about your previous style.

It was character based. I had an entourage of characters that I would exchange out to talk about different topics. Recently, all those characters vanished from my personality. It’s so weird. It’s sad sometimes, cause I liked the way they looked.

St. Petersburg-based artist iBOMS (Jabari Reed-Diop) addresses racism, discrimination and duality in his paintings. [ Courtesy of Jabari Reed-Diop ]

That was the transitional period you went through that was reflected in “Ego Death”?

Yeah and I’m not even sure I’d use the mushroom characters again. I feel like they served their purpose in the right way. Sometimes you have to let things go.

I read a quote that “Ego Death” was your transition from an activist to a philosopher.

When you’re an activist, a lot of the time there are things that people are telling you that you should be standing up for. You’ll find that you don’t coincide with a lot of people’s beliefs and that’s okay, that’s what makes you, you. That was me coming to terms with that being okay is what brought me into that more philosophical understanding to differences.

“Ego Death” sold out. How did that feel?

It was not as joyous as I thought it would feel. But I am still grateful for it, because that’s what my goal was. But once I got to my goal, I’m like, wow. I need to have different goals, whatever that may be. This is still going to push me, but I need goals that are going to fulfill me inside. That’s creating the work and being around friends and having conversations.

You moved into your first studio at the ArtsXChange last year. How did your process change when you moved into your own studio?

It stagnated. For four months, hardly any work came out. It was such a transition because normally I was at home, creating either in a tiny space in the living room or outside. Having my own space, it took a minute for me to figure out what I needed to do. I switched it around and now it’s kind of like a living room in one section and a work studio in the other section. So when I need that nostalgia moment I’ll go back into the living room and watch TV and paint like that.

What do you take inspiration from?

More recently it’s been freedom of thought, like not getting inspiration from looking on my phone. That’s where I used to get it from, looking at pictures. I still do it sometimes. But for the most part it’s taking walks talking to myself, seeing what I already know and talking about that. I write ideas down. It comes and goes and possesses me when it wants to.

It seems like you’ve also been inspired by nature, with all the flowers in your paintings.

Yeah. It caught me. It was a transforming moment when I went to Washington for the first time. I was feeling a consciousness that came from being in the mountains. Being around something that big is insane.

What is your next body of work?

It’s going to be based around those flowers I started doing. The dynamics are going to be two different sides of reality. There’s going to be a red side, like an old, grungy Coca-Cola sign and the flip side is going to be a vanilla mint, cream color. So it’s going to be an ascension feeling on one side and a little rough on the other side. But speaking from it on opposite sides. The red side, visually, you’d think that would be the bad side, but it’s the most constructive side. The blissful side is the insane stuff that took me off that path.

Where do you see yourself in the future as an artist?

I want to be imaginative, but still just a little bit ego-driven. I can’t get rid of it because if I do, I can’t create because then I have nothing to step on. But I want it to feel like a force of nature, like when people come into my art shows, I want them to feel like they’re walking next to a mountain.

I want to do an animation course. It would be a dope thing to get a few artists together and go take an animation class and we’d have a whole new medium that we can bring to St. Pete. Billboards would be insane with iBOMS art on them.

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A chat with St. Petersburg artist Jabari Reed-Diop, a.k.a. iBOMS - Tampa Bay Times
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