Between The Fog 4
Between the Fog is a limited edition collage series that incorporates my classic profile figure and reflects a new process that emerged during the 2020 quarantine. In the Spring of 2020, the pandemic raised a lot of questions about the future of my studio. As a result, I found myself in a mindset of being frugal and wanting to waste nothing. I went through all of my materials and became very intentional about how to use my “scraps.” I also had been waiting for the right project to integrate new patterns and textures that I’d been experimenting with, textures that were derived from linoleum block printing and photo transfer. In some of the print variations, the patterns feel like wallpaper, and in other variations, they feel like a representation of the DNA of my ancestors.
I was excited to play with a simple face because it allowed me to have a contained experiment in which I could focus on the foreground and the background. The size of the face allowed me to incorporate various sliced elements and explore new color combinations. Some faces include sharp shapes as a reflection of our acute and harsh reality in 2020. As I was creating these works, I would be listening to Democracy Now or the New York Times and understanding the sense of the gravity and devastation caused by the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic, particularly as it has impacted communities of color. I wanted to show the way in which our current reality cuts deep and leaves a wound.
Simultaneously, I also sought to bring in the bold possibility that the pandemic moment offered. While we are in a time of great hardship, we are also at a time of great possibility and we can shape our future for generations to come. The juxtaposition of colors, the contrasting lips and the saturated color combinations point at my excitement about the future.