
Tamia Alston-Ward
Black, 2022
24K gold, acrylic on wood panel
30 x 30 inches
129.5 x 86.4 cms
129.5 x 86.4 cms
Copyright The Artist
Pitch Black, as dark as one can find has been used to depict Black skin for centuries and all over the world. However, there was a point in which the...
Pitch Black, as dark as one can find has been used to depict Black skin for centuries and all over the world. However, there was a point in which the use of Black was made to have more of a racist undertone to where painting one's face black carries a deeper meaning. This is due to the racist depictions and caricatures of Black People in Post-Colonial society in which white supremacist ideology relegated the image of Black people to 3 distinct colors you can find in many Jim Crow-esque images: Black, White, and Red. I used Acrylic paint to create this piece, which led me to the history of Gum Arabic, as it is the binder used in many paints, it can be found in food and is the primary export of Sudan. Gum Arabic is found only in the acacia tree, has a history with colonization, and contributed to the gum wars, and Franco-Trarzan War of 1825, as France tried to profit from the gum arabic trade by occupying more of the Senegal River.
1
of
20