Blackness Gave Me Face (2024)

Performance, black ink, tub  

1080 x 1080

In Blackness Gave Me Face, I confront the pervasive hierarchies of colorism within the Black community, examining how light skin is often valorized while darker skin is marginalized. Through a performative process, I paint my body with black charcoal ink I personally crafted, accentuating the very features historically devalued and simultaneously fetishized. The work interrogates the performance of Black femininity under the white gaze, drawing on stereotypes such as the “mammy” figure or the “angry Black woman,” tropes often circulated and amplified in popular culture. Central to this exploration is the critique of Caribbean skin-lightening practices, including the use of carrot soap, highlighting the tension between personal agency and societal pressures. By embodying and exaggerating these tropes, I destabilize their power, exposing the absurdity and harm of internalized and externally imposed beauty standards. This performance becomes a space of reclamation, where Blackness is not just endured but celebrated in its unapologetic depth. It asks viewers to witness the performativity imposed upon Black women while emphasizing the resilience, creativity, and agency embedded in confronting these pressures.