1.Emory Douglas
2. Kwame Brathwaite
3. Shepard Fairey
4. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" Cover Art
During the summer of 2020 I participated in protests for racial justice. Overnight, hateful graffiti and artwork had popped up in the city center promoting prejudice and bigotry. In that moment I felt a call to action as an artist to create a countervisual that was beautiful and hopeful
I treated the creation of this piece organically, each element was added one at a time, beginning with the model and the message.
I made the decision to depict Diana Ross for my personal connection with her music and the sense of soul, love, and strength it inspires. At age 7 I listened over and over to the Supreme’s “Gold” on my Sony Walkman. I was so taken with her melodies that I chose “You Can’t Hurry Love” to sing at my elementary school talent show.
When I found this image of her wearing her hair in an afro, it reminded me of Kwame Brathwaite’s stunning photography that documented the Black is Beautiful movement. I wanted to express the same sense of beauty and celebration in this poster, to give the viewer a sense of hope. So she became the model for the beauty I hoped to instill in the message “Black Liberation Matters”.
I wanted to capture the feeling of awe the subject is experiencing in reading the words Black Liberation Matters. I originally played with the idea of using flowers, growing out from her hair but decided to use doves as a more direct symbol for freedom and liberation. They also became a serendipitous call back to Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, which I was reading that summer. The soft cover repeatedly cycled through my home and hands, leaving its conscious and unconscious impression on me and in this work.
The idea of experiencing awe led me to think of the sun setting and rising over the horizon. I played with the idea that Liberation is always on the horizon, with the next coming sun, and with each new day. The sun extends past the bounds of the poster, liberating itself from the picture plane.
Lastly, my choice in the color, and aesthetic style were influenced by Shepard Fairey and Emory Douglas. I chose bold and warm colors to signify energy and action. I decided that orange would be the main color, for its warmth, instead of red which I felt was too harsh, and alarming. I chose to contrast the warmth with an off black, to maintain the clarity of the image, and also infuse a softness. Each layer is separated by color, so that if given the opportunity, this image could become a screenprint as a method of distribution.
