Mixed Media Project

If you know me, you know that colleges are not my specialty. Any time I’ve been asked to do any kind of college work, my mind goes black. I love magazines and looking at images, but trying to configure them into something new has always stumped me in a way that I’ll never understand. For this project, I attempted to stick to my roots in terms of subject matter and tried to not be as technically harsh as I usually am.

One of the inspirations for my work was Kara Walker. Walker uses silhouette styled work to convey a story and message. In some ways, it’s more compelling that we only get the outline of the figures, because the images are usually incredibly graphic, and the subtleties of the image are able to convey a much stronger message, since one would have to use their imagination in order to truly see what the image is conveying. Another artist that inspired me was Romare Bearden. Bearden’s work was usually focused on black culture and existence. Many of the subjects in his work would be living their mundane lives and he portrays them in such vibrant colors, even if the subject matter is dark.

My series includes 12 pieces printed on colored paper. Six of the pieces are prints of women in black in white that are surrounded by black spheres, and six are blakc prints with colored spheres floating on the paper. Through these pieces, I wanted to loosely convey an aspect of black womanhood that’s not often talked about, which is the overwhelmingness of their lives. There are many things that hinder a black woman’s life, whether that’s a corrupt justice system, systemic racism, sexism, biases, stereotypes, and more, but they never truly convey the difficulty of their existence point blank. Sometimes when sitting down, you don’t realise how overwhelming the world can be until you finally have a break to sit down, and the days or weeks that you’ve just faced flow over you. The collages were done on colored paper to represent the light and joy that the world has to offer, and the good emotions that we feel throughout a day. The spheres represent the difficulties that life throws at these women, and how it encompases them wherever they go.