Kin to a Series of Forced Choices

My vision for this piece is to translate an image seen in a dream. While incorporating aesthetic faculties from Kerry James Marshall, I am experimenting with varying shades of the color black: ivory black, blue black and traditional black in order to consider their narratives together.

Because the figures presented themselves to me via a dream, when I began to translate them visually onto the canvas, I began to feel restricted due to the lack of detail I retained. To combat, I began creating images and experimenting with colors: I began with a hue of pink and later added patterns, then layered a low chroma red. The patterns I realized in the background, averted my eyes attention from the foreground focus of the figures and so I muted their pronounciations to revert the eyes attention back to the figures.

Kerry James Marshall avidly uses an array of black shades to express that Black is not monochromatic which metaphorically applies to the black race but also, quite literally that there are a multitude of shades of black paint. I wanted to expound on this by using three shades of black in order to play with temperatures and intensities. My goal is to experience these differences in real time with each view. 

This process challenged me to express more with less: working from a dream, I felt as though the piece did not “have enough” and I wanted to ensure that the painting remained visually engaging while also encouraging a central focus towards the figures. Aligning with pre and post- rationalizations, I felt as though an innumerable amount of decisions were made for and on this painting and many felt forced: ensuring visual engagement, adding elements, removing elements, deciding it is not finished, and accepting its completion. All of these things could be seen as a series of forced choices through my own lens of imagery prejudice which began to remind me of decisions people make daily with and without prejudicial and moral weights and so I am working to translate those battles onto the canvas that perhaps the viewer will be able to experience those tensions, visually.

"Kin to a Series of Forced Choices," Acrylic, Oil Pastel, and Gold Leaf on canvas, 36 x 24 in., (2020)

Aesthetic Faculties Considered:

"EVERYTHING IS PURGED FROM THIS PAINTING BUT ART, NO IDEAS HAVE ENTERED THIS WORK.," Painting on canvas, 1966, John Baldessari'

"You Must Suffer if You Want to be Beautiful," acrylic, graphite, crayon, paper collage and printed paper collage on canvas, 76 1/8 x 55 7/8 in., 1991, Kerry James Marshall