"optical facade i"

Title: "Optical Facade I"

Year: 2020

Style: Mixed Media

Medium: Makeup, Acrylic Paint, Charcoal & Collage on Fabriano Paper

52.5cm X 24.5cm X 2cm

Weight: 0.029kgs

Artist’s Statement: My body of work, 'SABOTEUR' revolves around the themes of feminism and identity. It looks at the misconceptions of beauty as it relates to black women and how that has and continues to put them at a disadvantage.

In my work I show how black women have evolved throughout the years, by highlighting the 21st century controversies around black women bleaching their skin, replacing their natural hair with synthetic hair and modifying their bodies to fit certain beauty standards as laid out by society.

The work is inspired by my career journey in modeling, and a song by Nina Simone called "Four Women", which speaks about black women who were grappling with insecurities with their hair, body and complexion.

This made me realize that we have been brainwashed for so many years by social media, modeling agencies, western culture and men into feeling this way about ourselves. With this body of work I seek to empower women from all walks of life who have ever felt degraded or dismissed by social media.