T Z U  P O R É    A R T 

statement

As a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist, my work is a living exploration of urban ecology, ancestral memory, and cultural design. Born and raised in Detroit, I draw from the city’s layered histories and resilient spirit to create work that bridges fine art, biophilic barbering, and regenerative agriculture. These three disciplines form the backbone of my practice—each rooted in care, ritual, and transformation.

My visual art spans painting, sculpture, and immersive installations, often incorporating found materials, sound, and digital projection to evoke the complexity of memory and place. Early works captured the raw beauty of Detroit’s industrial decay and vibrant street life, while recent pieces reflect on the ephemeral nature of history and the interconnectedness of our stories. I use abstraction and realism to blur boundaries between past and future, inviting viewers into spaces of reflection and reimagination.

In parallel, my barbering practice—anchored by the project Hair is the Garden We Wear—reframes grooming as a sacred act of cultivation. Each cut is a design of intention, a tactile meditation on identity, and a celebration of Black and Brown aesthetics. This philosophy extends into my work in urban agriculture, where I treat soil and scalp as sites of healing, growth, and resistance.

Through this integrated approach, I aim to challenge conventional notions of art, labor, and legacy. My work is not confined to galleries—it lives in gardens, barbershops, and community spaces. It is worn, grown, and felt. By engaging with Detroit’s evolving narrative, I seek to foster connection, spark dialogue, and honor the beauty of self-determined culture.

Ultimately, my practice is a devotion—an offering to the city that raised me, and a blueprint for living artfully, intentionally, and in rhythm with the land and the people.

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bio

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Tzu Poré is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, designer barber, and urban cultivator from Detroit, Michigan. A devoted Taurus with an old-school spirit and a modern edge, Poré has carved a life where vocation and passion are one. His practice spans fine art, biophilic barbering, and regenerative agriculture—each discipline rooted in ritual, community, and transformation.

Poré studied extensively at the College for Creative Studies, where he deepened his understanding of visual language, materiality, and cultural design. His work draws from Black Afro-Caribbean Americana, ancestral tradition, and the socio-economic histories of urban life. Whether on canvas, scalp, or soil, Poré’s creations reflect a commitment to care, mastery, and storytelling.

His journey includes formative years in the U.S. Army as an aviation mechanic, where he gained a tactile fluency with tools and processes that now inform the structural depth of his paintings and sculptural work. After returning to civilian life, Poré began exploring hair as both medium and metaphor—moonlighting as a barber in Detroit and Los Angeles, and cultivating a philosophy of grooming as sacred design. This ethos evolved into Hair is the Garden We Wear, a project that reimagines the scalp as soil and the haircut as ceremony.

With years of travel and cultural immersion behind him, Poré’s work reflects a multinational fluency and bold interdisciplinary approach. His visual art—ranging from expressive abstraction to layered mixed media—delves into themes of identity, memory, and transformation. His installations often incorporate found objects, sound, and digital projection to evoke the complexity of place and blur the boundaries between past, present, and future.

As the founder of EMB Contemporary, a gallery on Detroit’s east side, Poré fosters creative autonomy and cultural stewardship. His urban agriculture practice, guided by biophilic principles, treats land as legacy and cultivation as resistance. Through every medium, he invites us to reimagine beauty, labor, and legacy—not as separate pursuits, but as a unified way of being.

Tzu Poré’s life is his art. His work is not confined to galleries—it lives in gardens, barbershops, and community spaces. It is worn, grown, and felt. Through this integrated practice, he continues to inspire, challenge, and cultivate the future.

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clubs​

DETROIT FINE ARTS BREAKFAST CLUB

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EAST MADE BEAST COLLECTIVE

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DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ART

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MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART DETROIT

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DETROIT ARTIST MARKET

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