Existing comment:
SIMONE AGOUSSOYE
Beauty Mark
Acrylic and oil paint on canvas
48 x 36 in.
Courtesy of the Artist
ARTIST STATEMENT
Beauty Mark is a painting of my younger sister, a 16-year-old girl living inside outside, upside down.
This work speaks to the identity and the presence of young Black girls living during one of the most difficult and challenging times in their life and in history. A Global Pandemic. COVID-19. Being a Woman in America. Being a Black Woman in America. Black Lives Matter. These combined social elements leave one wondering what the future holds. Just like this one Black girl in this dark, seemingly scary world, she can, still, and will have a powerful impact on the world. Despite all of these disturbing circumstances and all of the ugliness we have seen in 2020, beauty still exists -- even if it is as small as this Beauty Mark.
The sense of darkness that the year 2020 brought is represented in this painting by the black acrylic paint used as the background. It was also important to depict the texture and the different layers that this young lady is made up of by the heavy application of oil paint for her hair and clothing. |