01
2021–present
Movement Portal #1
A permanent civic gateway for Fort Worth’s historic Black Lake Como neighborhood, developed through a five-year process of dinners, mentorship, public design, and community memory.
Artist · Writer · Cultural strategist
Darryl
Ratcliff.
I build social sculptures, public artworks, and civic structures that make care, memory, and collective power visible.
Practice
Care as a civic material.
For more than thirteen years, I have worked across social sculpture, public art, poetry, and civic systems. I treat listening, gathering, circulation, and institution-building as artistic materials. The work often looks like a place, a public process, or an organization before it is recognized as art.
Selected work
View complete project archive ↗
02
2021–22
The Plant Library
A circulating collection of living plants, care rituals, participant journals, and stories—co-created with Nikiko Masumoto through the YBCA 10 Fellowship and Dreamseeds.
03
2012–present
Ash Studios
A 20,000-square-foot, Black- and Brown-led social sculpture in South Dallas. Co-founded with Fred Villanueva, Ash makes cultural space itself a long-term artwork.
Writing
Criticism as a way of making the cultural field visible.
Essays and reporting on artists, institutions, power, and the public life of culture, published by The Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, and Patron.
Selected recognition
2025 CultureBanq Fellow
2022 Rabkin Prize
2021 YBCA 10 + YBCA 100
2020 / 2015 Nasher Artist Grants
2016 DMA Kimbrough Fund Award
2016 D Magazine Best Gallery or Artspace
Connected work