Vices: Fallacies and Realities

Every human lives with their own vices that must be dealt with day to day. For some races those vices are imposed upon them on a systemic level, creating or feeding into stereotypes that are sensationalized by the media and perpetuated by popular culture. These fallacies are used to justify discriminatory behavior against an entire group of people. Even within their own community, people become conditioned to an incomplete narrative that leads them to judge their own or accept a false narrative and become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.The perception of what good or evil is depends on the viewer and their given experiences. This series seeks to blur the lines depicting a combination of real world situations and those derived from popular culture. In this show, the seven deadly sins are used as a lens to explore vice within the African-American community. In this body of work vice is represented as both a reality for some individuals but also as it has been imposed by outside forces. Vice depicted here can be understood as the need to fill a void within ones self in a destructive This installation seeks to challenge the viewer’s perspective by alternating between black light and white light. This shift in lighting challenges the viewers perspective of a given situation. This is best achieved by black light’s ability to alter the color, luminosity and hue; representing a shift in reality. Each image is highly saturated calling attention to the medias sensationalized portrayal of African American vices. The patterns and symbols painted on each model represents each associated vice, the emptiness and ascetically completes each piece. This series is not meant to offer solutions to the systemic circumstances that created them; rather it questions how we view the lives of people different than ourselves and the validity of third party representation.

The shift from black light to white light is also symbolic of the difference in perception between how blackness is perceived by society looking in on African- American culture. The work is influenced by the work of Kerry James Marshall and his treatment of the African American figure. Through extreme darkness, Marshall’s figures become more ambiguous. I achieve a similar effect with a black skin tone against a vibrant background at high contrast. Blackness has been moved into the foreground and stripped of its negative connotation.