The Black & Brushed Aside

As an African American artist, I believe that my art allows me to create a visual representation of what I believe, what I’m passionate about, and what my purpose is. With photography, my work creates narratives surrounding specific issues and subjects which raise societal awareness, specifically issues in the black and brown community. This series, Black & Brushed Aside, references the major racial injustices and problems that we face. These issues include: political redlining, views of how unprofessional our culture is, the disrespect and sexualization of black women, the suspicious assumptions of a black man’s appearance, police brutality, and how society stereotypes our professions categorizing our intelligence and feelings as less than or illiterate. While these situations continue to occur, many individuals will want us to ignore them, force us to “get over it”, or utilize other issues to protest against our racial difficulties. My goal is to present an emotional set of photographs that portray many of the issues that are currently affecting in the black community. Each photo represents and references historical or real life situations that have happened.  The purpose is to raise awareness and understanding of the problems that I see and why these issues should gain more attention, while many people in society try to force us to ignore them.