This project was conceived while walking around in Seattle, mulling over David Roediger's The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class and also influenced by some thoughtful paging through Latina Beauty earlier at a bookstore. The previous day had brought an unexpected intersection with store that specialized in "Scandinasian" style home furnishings, so the commodification of "Eastern" cultures by Americans was on the brain. The store's tag line was "East meets West, Primitive meets Modern" by the way, and it would be surprising if they meant to say that Scandinavians are a primitive people.

Advertising is a tricky beast that leaves one questioning. Just who is it that makes these images, and who are they for? What does it mean to be made an object in order to invoke desire or some kind of insecurity? For example, who decides that a picture of two blond white girls checking out a black boy with the word "fling" emblazoned on it is a good ad for selling clothes?

This series tries to address these questions, juxtaposing disturbing fashion representations with traditional portraiture. Partially a nod at Mucha, and his use of women as symbols in a series, and a bit of a spoof on ads used by Benneton and Gap, who use token multiculturalism to sell clothing.

The subjects chosen are all American women who only fit into racial categories problematically. They also have diverse body types, though this is not obvious since the focus is on the face, and diverse sexual orientations, which is probably not at all apparent, but happens to be true. People are more than what they look like.

identity i - white? Oil on canvas with frame collage 14.5 x 12.5 inches

identity ii - yellow? Oil on canvas with frame collage 14.5 x 12.5 inches

identity iii - brown? Oil on canvas with frame collage 14.5 x 12.5 inches

identity iv - black? Oil on canvas with frame collage 14.5 x 12.5 inches

|back to political| or |back to paintings|