Melanin

www.ArtPal.com/indianorwood27

My gallery theme, Melanin, is a reflection of me finding my identity as a black female. My desire is to have my work display my process of slowly embracing my heritage. I want my works to show every black child going through this process of self-love that they are enough. My Melanin theme came from my life as I grew up in a predominantly white middle and elementary school and grew to associate beauty with European standards. During this time I often felt envy that my hair wasn’t straight enough or my skin wasn’t fair enough. As I journeyed through the process of self love, I began to realize the beauty of my kinky hair, the beauty of my dark skin, the beauty of me. I want my audience to feel that, to be reminded that, being you is the most beautiful you can be.

I explore mediums that mad vibrant colors, such as oil paint, acrylic paint, photography, and pastels. This is because for the theme of my artwork I want to show different types of black people, the diversity and the beauty of their skin. I use the mediums to show that being black isn’t the same color. The majority of my works use black subjects and motifs to add the main theme of my work of finding my identity. An example is a set of works in which the subjects are black women with hair that is shown as different things (i.e. space or water). I wanted to show the beauty of black women’s hair as it is often ignored.

I hope you enjoy browsing through my site. Any support is greatly appreciated.

-India

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Melanin