After coming back from the residency I began to think a lot about how I might want to go about rendering "different modes of expressions" as Sunanda would say. So after the residency I started to experiment with an adhesive back transfer paper that I had bought some months ago. I had thought at the time that it would something really new for me to use and it would allow me to place images on my work in a different way then cutting and pasting actual images from photo paper. This way the images would have a translucence to them which was definitely what I was looking for. It would allow me to keep the character of the material that I was using, the brown paper bag, while not directly being limited with just drawings and photographs. A while ago as I was investigating the whole colorism subject I had begun to compile these images of prominent African Americans who were a visible reference of what I know people classify as "light-skinned" and "dark- skinned." During that time it was pre- President Obama so there were a number of images of Barack and Michelle Obama to choose from. I found however that I was more interested in Michelle Obama than Barack Obama though, not so much because I wasn't excited about a potential black president, but I was interested in the reason for so many black women's interest in Michelle Obama. Not only is she a educated, a intellectual, and a well spoken woman, but what I heard from many women is that "finally a darker-skinned woman got the break." This interested me because it changed for me how I interpreted people's perception of Barack Obama. On one hand there were many white people specifically in the media who thought she was a threatening figure, where at different times they framed her to be a hinderance to his campaign. Yet, on the other hand to black women she was the very reason they accepted Barack Obama, or took him more seriously. Perhaps it is because people had seen numerous "light-skinned" men in power who were wonderful speakers, and who had fought for the "black cause" but either married white or a woman who was"near white." What that communicates is something far more than I think people realize.
So anyway, I was particularly interested in the way that the media was portraying her. There was one image on the cover of "Times" that caught my eye, because it portrays Michelle in a very innocent way(with her arms covering her). During this same time I had begun to collect some images of Beyonce' as well, because she for me emphasizes a woman of color who has been able to be so universal perhaps because of her skin tone. And also, she came under some controversy last year because of her ads in Loreal, which in my impression I had suspected they had been using lightened images much earlier than now but I suppose people are just now catching on. Beyonce' has also made it known that she now identifies as "creole"(50% Creole of Color from her mother and her father is African American), which I feel is an interesting change as well.
But together they both represent two women of color who have achieved a certain level of achievement, Beyonce as an entertainer and First Lady Michelle Obama has achieved academic and professional success not to mention being the "Mom-in-chief." So here are these two women who both believe in the same upperwardly mobile ideals( Beyonce apparently grew up looking up to professional women like Michelle Obama in her mother's salon in Houston, Texas), yet the one thing that separates them in the eyes of the black community is their skin tone. Coming from a woman who was born and raised in Houston, Texas I am fully aware of how Beyonce was viewed in the community, particularly during the rise of Destiny's Child in the late 90s to early 2000s I remember people from my high school and across the city who could sense some "skin tone-marketing" at the core of their group. Beyonce, the lighter skinned member( not to mention daughter of the manager), was singing lead, while the other darker members(even if a few shades) were at the back ups. Whether this theory is true I don't know, but it seemed like there was a movement about this across America even prior to: Salt-N-Peppa, SWV, EnVogue, TLC, Xscape(Teeny),702, then much later on 3LW. All of these groups typically had a lighter-skinned member and most of the girls when I was growing up wanted to be her, whether they were dark or light. This is a puzzling phenomenon to me, but I'll get back to that later. So by comparing these two women I think it really allows one to see how color conscious the world really is, which surely doesn't make it right but somehow you wonder how and when will it change.
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4 comments:
Hi Lauren, I would love to see your posted image in person, how big is it? Are you bringing it in June? Your work is very thought provoking and your perspective that you share is insightful! How can you push further through your visuals what you have been researching and writing, what you are questioning of our society. It is so important that we hear your voice and become aware of the undercurrents colorism that have been ignored. peace, Rachel
Hey Rachel, this actually isn't the final image. I just wanted to show that I was experimenting with different types of materials to express similar things. As far as size it's about around 8x10 to possibly 11x17 so not too big really. It is the size of a regular sized lunch bag opened out. I'm not sure if I'm bringing it in June, because this was just an idea that I was working on. I'll probably be bringing work that will cooresponds more with my thesis topic, which will be dealing with the representation of Blacks in American visual culture. I will probably uses colorism as a subtext within this topic, becauses I think the challenge in "pushing further" my visuals for colorism is that if I push too far like I did in the 2nd residency my work is accused of being too didactic or literal, when I reduce it's seen as not giving enough. So I'm trying to work out the balance here, it's much easier said than done. I find actually that its much easier to talk about it in my writing then to try to illustrate a topic that most people don't know about. This as Sunanda has said is the "burden of the Other."
You are right, it's like you need to make art that is not literal in order to draw people in, give the a question, or something to discover for themselves in the work, but you also are trying to educate your audience enough so they understand the framework for what you are presenting. Who is you audience, do you need to bodies of work, one that income the audience and one that expresses the idea and now questions the audience? Or can you put both in the same work. You do have a more challenging job!
Wow what a stunning presentation of concept! The presence of the paper bag really moves me, because in old sororities, they used a "paper bag test" to determine if certain girls of color were allowed in. They would hold up the paper bag to their skin, and if they were darker than it, they were banned.
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