What exactly am I looking for and has anybody thought looked into it? Those were the questions I had when I began researching my topic. I was interested in several different combinations of concepts: the portrayal of the black body and blackness itself, the use of the black body in the Western canon, and the underlying meaning in works centered around blackness.

That is a lot to unpack and it is harder to nail down a single point of research. So I started by pulling out 5 images that really resonated with me, and tried to articulate why they did. Here I have streamlined (kind of) my interest in the images:

• The medium used and how it conveys meaning in itself
• The forms, symbols, and other visual elements each artist showcases
• The appropriation of artistic styles associated with high European art
• The differing representations of the black body and identity
• The naming of the pieces and how that interacted with the actual piece

By staring at the images and pulling out 5 of them from the Pecha Kucha, I found that I gravitated towards something that I did not expect to. Sonya Clark’s Triangle Trade stuck out to me because of its meaning and its way of capturing a complex subject in this neat triangle. It was the use of materials- the woven cotton fibers- that drew me even closer.

11/14, 1:00pm-2:00pm

I have decided that each week would be devoted to another facet centered around the work of Clark which is outlined below:

Week 1: Getting to know Sonya Clark and her inspiration

• Who is Sonya Clark?
• Why hair and why in this medium?
• Does she work in other mediums as well?
• Where is she drawing her inspiration? What is her thesis or hypothesis?
• How does she see her work and her process?
• What are the influences Clark is bringing in?

Week 2: History and Context of African-American hair

• What are the implications of hair? In a social context? In a cultural context?
• What does hair say about us?
• How is African American hair historically and socially defined?

Week 3: How does this all make sense?

• How does this connect to what African-American/ Black art tries to do in general?
• The sociological imagination in art?
• Textiles and materiality
• Why did I end up here?

10/30, 4:30pm-5:10pm

My initial start to trying to make sense of what I wanted to research and how they all connected together.  I found that the artists I was interested in held common themes of subverting images, symbolic meaning, portrayals of blackness and black bodies.

10/31, 9:30am- 10:30am

I was trying to get a sense for Rashaad Newsome’s work because of his interesting use of baroque era aesthetic with elements associated with African-American culture/ pop culture through mixed media. I especially loved the idea of using imagery to oppose cultural essentialism in a way that challenges hegemonic control. I think that was a concept seen throughout the work of the artists I was interested in.

11/3, 12:45pm-2:00pm

At this stage I am researching the other artists I am interested in. I am interested in Firelei Baez’s work because it draws on her heritage as a Haitian Dominican woman. It speaks to a narrative and a duality of the self that gets encapsulated in her work and the names of her work. I am particularly focused on her works A Vessel of Genealogies and Can I Pass? Introducing the Paper Bag to The Fan Test for the Month of December. Omar Diop uses pattern and color in a layering effect that evokes historical African portraiture, again this use of historical imagery within contemporary art.

11/5, 3:00pm-4:15pm

I started really looking into Kehinde Wiley’s works. I love his use of color, but I was drawn in by his Lamentation series and the use of color with the depiction of the black body. The same can be said for the Ikire Jones brand as well. Both works appropriate classical Western styles in a way that positions the black body in a whole new context and relation.

11/10, 2:30pm-3:40pm

I am still trying to find other artists that fit within the theme/ questions I am trying to ask. My Pecha Kuch still seems all over the place and it seems to transition from one concept to another. I am just trying to fill in the blanks in the presentation in order to make a cohesive presentation.

11/11, 1:00pm-1:30pm

Even at this stage, I was still trying to make sense of how these artists fit together and the formal and thematic elements that connect them together in a certain order in my mind.

So I started with those two (Walker and Newsome) and went on from there adding Firelei Baez, Omar Diop, Kehinde Wiley, Carrie Mae Weems, Ikire Jones, Amy Sherald, and a whole lot more in an effort to capture that idea of closer looking and layered meaning. Of course, when you start off with an idea it takes a turn for another idea. Conveying a message in visuals in difficult because I may know what I want to get at, ultimately the art itself controls the direction, and that was a big takeaway for me. Having to move and add and subtract from the images became a maddening process, and to be completely honest I am not 100% happy with my Pecha Kucha but it does at least capture this idea of representation of blackness that underlined my initial research.

I found Google Keep a great way to keep track of the websites I was visiting and keeping my information together rather than just bookmarking it. Creating a collage of photographs an ideas on a Doc also kept my information together and provided a visual into what I was interested in, some of those images made the cut and some didn’t.

Some of the artists I looked into I was introduced to in the Making Africa exhibition at the High Museum last year. Other have just stuck with me through time, and some I encountered in my research of the artists that I knew. At first I was really interested in the Ikire Jones brand and the use of black bodies in classical scenes, in particular the idea of wearable art. Casey helped me tremendously with finding a book on WorldCat and ILLing a book entitled Dandy Lion by Shantrelle P. Lewis. Although looking into black dandyism was interesting, it was not what I was looking for. I liked the concept presented through black dandyism, of using elements that are historically Western in nature and mixing it with an Afrocentric motif or narrative. The idea of subverting an image or using a style deliberately to inserting the black body and narrative into the mainstream narrative through the use of certain medium and aesthetic.

During my research process, I mostly bookmarked pages with information on them that I found relevant and started a bookmark folder for them. When I started reading Dandy Lion, I relied mostly on notes that I will probably transcribe into my word document of ideas. I also inserted images into my word document or saved them in Google images and Artstor. My research style is a bit more interesting. I tend to do a brain dump in the beginning of to just get some sense of where my interests are and where to begin looking. Truthfully, I have not really figured out what elevates one idea over the other. It seems that the ideas that made me ask questions or linked to another field of thought stood out and promoted more research. The intertwining of race, representation, and art became a big one for me. Then it became a game of narrowing it down, which I am still in the process of.

List of possible artists to explore:

Kara Walker

Firelei Báez

Ikire Jones (Wale Oyejide )

Omar Diop

Rashaad Newsome

Kehinde Wiley

I know that I tend to think in sporadic bursts that prompt me to rapidly scribble down ideas on paper or online before they disappear. My research becomes more methodical once I have found something I wanted to explore and I am asking specific questions. That can become one of my weaknesses and strengths. The strength is generating ideas and making connections between subjects and academic fields whereas the  weakness comes from trying jumping from idea to idea. I jump from one idea to another, and sometimes I forget where I was going with the original idea.