| STATEMENT OF INTENT |
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As a Nigerian-American and a Black woman, I am involved in two very distinct and diverse cultures which together create a personal and cultural dissonance in me. Though the hyphenated identity is my reality, I find I identify more conceptually with the fundamentality of Blackness and trying to investigate it. Thus, I do figurative portraits which explore the dynamics of being both engaged and disengaged with definitions of skin as an all-encompassing and singular entity. My work deals with interaction; employing "contrast" as a distinguishing method, I explore that interaction--hence the inclusion of Whiteness as motif into the dialogue of my work. Subjectively, the Otherness of Black is my representation of "Inclusiveness," while the common Inclusiveness of White is my inverted "Otherness." Essentially, the relationship between "Otherness and Inclusiveness" manifests in Black being the positive mark imprinted into the neutral space of the foreign White picture plane. The overall effect is meant to be stark, minimal, and streamlined: the Black figure as the molded silhouette punctuating the White which seems to engulf it. With mainly rudimentary tools, such as pen-ink, I seek to reflect the rudimentary tools used socially in formulating representations of one's identity. Creating meticulously detailed hatch marks, I aim to portray the most visceral debasement of tonal Blackness. Indenting these marks into the White surface, I explore Blackness as skin akin to landscapes and/or plates -- each component comprising the Black figure and molding its presence. Though the White surface/space is left alone (emptied), its ground varies from wood panel to paper/board. Regardless of the ground, the effect is to render, or engrave, the Black mark-making prominently, to leave an impression on the surface, forcing the viewer to focus solely on the flesh and interpret the intricacies which make up the figure. Primarily, my aim is to investigate what comprises skin, what I divulge is tonal gradations of individual moments in Blackness and Whiteness, of Otherness and Inclusiveness. In sum, the hyphenated reality manifests in Black and White interjecting while existing in conjunction, to reflect internalized representations of selfhood.
The recent inclusion of faceless, detached hands into the dialogue of my work aims to further investigate the overall discussion involving the Blackness/Whiteness (Otherness/Inclusiveness) interaction play. These contrasting hands along with their accompanying subjects are entities which present concerns in social mores and discomforts as well as issues pertaining to foreign relations and collective human history. Although sensual in presentation and ambiguous in nature, the effect of the renderings is to pose the questions of why representations and symbols of control can so easily be manipulated and how a slight of hand - literally - can at once go from being comforting to suddenly domineering in interpretation. In the future, I mean to investigate a more engaging and all-encompassing interpretation of the hyphenated identity of all Americans, besides my own subjective, Black experience. |