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Tamia Alston-Ward

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Tamia Alston-Ward, From: Nana, 2022

Tamia Alston-Ward

From: Nana, 2022
24K gold, glitter, steel, nickel, silver, bronze, copper, brass, casein ground, mummy brown pigment on prepared paper
51 x 34 inches
129.5 x 86.4 cms
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This piece is dedicated to Beverly Ann Ward, my Nana, my grandmother who transitioned in 2021, a woman who contributed to my ability to live, and whose DNA without which...
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This piece is dedicated to Beverly Ann Ward, my Nana, my grandmother who transitioned in 2021, a woman who contributed to my ability to live, and whose DNA without which I would not exist. Self-portraiture makes an artist confront themselves in a way that simply glancing in a mirror does not do, and I reflected on my ancestry and the limits of my knowledge of whose genetics make up my appearance. Many Black Americans aren't aware of their genetic history before the transatlantic slave trade. This leads to a history of Black culture that created its traditions and customs, languages, and foods that all have tangential African roots. Black folks are a mosaic of culture and a tapestry of influences, and my self-portrait is my way of displaying that. I wear a bracelet from Ghana that has the symbol Gye Nyame, meaning, fear no one except God. This led me to research the name "Nana" which is used in Ghana as the title of a monarch. I wear the earrings of my late Nana and her necklace that I do not take off. The piece is using almost every metal that is incorporated in every other piece it is displayed with to showcase the culmination of identities and histories Black people face. I also incorporate a toned background with the color "Mummy Brown" as a way to speak to the removal of Blackness for exploitation and artistic use. Mummy Brown was a pigment that was made in the 16th and 17th centuries by artists grinding up Egyptian mummified bodies to make paintings, and was one of the favorites of the Pre-Raphaelite painters until the manufacturers ran out of bodies to create the pigment. The piece is also about the gaze, as I am looking out with sketchbook in hand confronting whomever stands before me. I see myself as a scribe, and as such I participate in the act of drawing recording subjects how I truly see them. The dominant gaze we see life under in the media, the news, in art spaces have been under the lense of the white gaze, so much so we aren't aware of how deeply it affects those of all backgrounds. I am changing that gaze and force the viewer to feel what it's like to be depicted under the gaze of a Black woman, and question how I would depict, describe, and transcribe their image.
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