Black Artist, White World

A homogeneous environment such as the art academy (and greater art world) limits non-white fine artists’ abilities to innovate, to challenge, to subvert the status quo, to push society forward, and to do the social and political work that has been done historically. In addition, the art academy and art world have used the function of an implied white audience to create a status quo for the consumption and critique of fine arts. To deconstruct and work against this limitation in my own art, I use an intersectional approach to research and making: challenging dominant logics (such as the implied white audience), using personal narrative (such as memory) as a primary source, and contesting distortions (such as exclusion, stereotypes, and the devaluing and tokenization of minoritized experience)