My work focuses on cultural capital, beauty, and possession in the black community. I saw a parallel between the Instagram posts of young black couples and Renaissance portraits and used both to inform my work. During the Renaissance, marriage was centered around the family, with little connection to love. Despite this, themes of love, beauty, and attraction were captivating to Renaissance men and women, and as a result, were common in artwork. Like the people of the Renaissance, I am drawn to themes of love, beauty, and attraction within the black community. I am inspired by popular trends amongst couples like the gifting of nameplate necklaces, and the matching of nail polish color to durags or bonnets of a significant other. These courtship practices have an underlying theme of possession and are intended to show the affiliation of oneself with another person. While I explored the theme of possession between members of the community, I also wanted to explore what it means to possess our culture as a whole. Black people are architects of modern trends, from durags and waves to braids and baby hairs. Because our culture is so rich, much of it is appropriated, often for the financial gain of others. Through this series, I would like to reclaim ownership by shifting the focus to the originators of these trends while capturing modern courtship activities within the community.
