“Old Friends”
Old Friends, Oil on Canvas, 34x34in, 2018
“Old Friends” is the first figural painting that sparked a clear direction for the future of my work. The physical blending of black/brown and white tones displayed in this painting has allowed me to reconnect with both sides of my black and white heritage, and ultimately ignited my journey of breaking free of the archetypal molds that I and my peers have tried to endlessly cram myself into. My old friends are the mindsets and expectations that were generational and socially ingrained into me, including beauty standards that I reject so that I can freely exist as the person that I am naturally.
I started painting this piece with the happiest smile on my face out of pure excitement of working from life. As I started and continued to repeat the same fair skin tone of the model in front of me, I was reminded of the white centric standard of beauty I’ve been conditioned and grown up to see as desirable and worthy. I quickly became fatigued from feeling like I needed to paint true to the model, and eventually it built up so much boredom and anger within me that I began slamming any possible color into the canvas out of spite of society and disappointment in myself. I was tired of disregarding the colored side of myself and felt disappointed that I had never painted someone who looked like me before. The impulsive choice to integrate nonsensical colors helped me confront the dual mindset of being black and white, and helped me detach from white femme ideals and unengage with perpetuating the underappreciation and underrepresentation of colored people in figure art and other. This exploration of blending color in many senses, helped me realize and embrace myself as a diverse person beyond the details of which makes up my skin color.
As a representation of a person of mixed race this painting alludes to the burdens I inherit from both sides of my black and white self while highlighting the shared experience between people of blended backgrounds. There is societal pressure to over perform and subscribe to one part of your cultural heritage so we can be more easily categorized. “You talk, dress and act funny so you aren’t black enough, but you’re also too brown to relate to us white folk but you’re also foreign so you don’t actually relate to anyone” are types of conversations that have stained my existence of simultaneously relating and unrelating to everyone. Growing up in predominantly white Virginia and Texas suburbia I struggled to be accepted as an unconventional black female in a country that expects you to be conventional. I live and realize the division of those around me and within myself focusing on the illusions of physical appearances. The façade of racial and ethnic stereotyping negates individual interests and experiences, and creates an endless rift in humanity making existing without criticism and suppression impossible.
Although this painting in particular holds an essence of discontentment, it was the catalyst for portraying colored and non colored people in a fluid way throughout my work, not only to heal my own burdens, but to empower parts of myself that are inherently and unnaturally disenfranchised. Nevertheless, the flow of nonsensical colors combined with varying skin tones has helped me bring to light and fall in love with my differences and that of other people despite race, size, ethnicity, identity and or sexuality.
