Why a Prominent American Artist Paints Skin Pitch-Black

[pleasant music]

It all started in undergraduate school.

We would do figure drawing classes,

but we never had black or brown models,

so I didn't know how to paint black or brown skin.

We had an assignment to paint someone we know,

and I decided to paint one of my friends,

and she's a black woman.

I remember my professor was critiquing me

on the way I was painting her skin tone,

like oh, there's too many red undertones.

She looks a little orange,

and I'm just like, it's not like we have resources

to learn how to paint for that.

So I just painted the figure completely pitch black.

I started to really fall in love with the contrast

of the darkness with the light.

It eventually ended up being my signature style.

[pleasant music]

A lot of times in Western society,

dark and light are at odds,

so I really liked incorporating

both dark and light harmoniously in one image, together.

They show that dark can be beautiful, it can be sublime.

[pleasant music]

[pencil scritching]

The assignment that The New Yorker gave

was for the 100th anniversary of voting rights for women.

[Narrator] Susan B. Anthony and her followers

have won for women the right to vote.

[Narrator] August 26th, 1920.

[Narrator] The 19th Amendment becomes law.

[Narrator] The official date of this enactment

came on August 26th, 1920.

[somber music]

It's the 100th anniversary of voting rights for women,

but black women weren't able to vote 'til 1965,

when the Equal Rights Voting Act was passed.

I wanted to highlight that as well in my work,

and acknowledge the brutal reality

of inequality that was taking place during that time.

I knew I wanted to do a historical portrait.

I wanted to really paint and honor a woman

that has really helped create change.

Sojourner Truth was the pioneer to really advocate

for voting rights for all women of color,

and she deserves to be recognized.

So she managed to escape slavery,

and she was the first black woman

to win a case against the white man

gaining back her infant son.

As soon as she escaped, she became a suffragist

for women's rights, and she coined the phrase,

Ain't I a woman?

which was about the attack on black womanhood.

Despite the circumstances she was born into,

she was able to still advocate for something,

and still stand strong in who she was,

and she never played it safe.

In the original photo,

it looks like she's gone through a lot.

There's pain there.

But I see someone who's also empowered and resilient,

so I kinda wanted to make it relatable to this time,

where there's still a heaviness going on in the world,

but there's also a brightness.

We're in an age where it's about being aggressive,

and being forthright, and strong,

and I think that's amazing,

but I also believe it's important to show the softer side,

and that's how I use my color

to kind of incorporate a softness into the image.

Yes, this is a strong woman,

but she also has a humanness to her,

and a soft side to her

that deserves to be protected and recognized as well.

[plucky music]

I really love the flowers in the original photo,

because they were kind of drooping down a little bit,

and I felt that kind of almost represented

the mood during that time,

where there's flowers that represent beauty,

but they're also drooping down.

And so I wanted to change that and show the flowers

going upward, to show positivity and hope.

I like to incorporate collage as well,

and decorative papers.

A lot of the times to capture the wooly texture

on her scarf, I'll use a paper

that replicates that wooly texture.

For me, it's important to incorporate

different materials into the artwork,

so it won't be just a painting,

but it'll also have more dimensions to it.

The eyes are interesting, because I collage in the eyes.

A lot of times people think I paint them,

but they're actually collaged in

from magazines, and so I have

a collection of eyes that I use.

From no specific person.

The eyes are such a central part of any figurative painting,

so it's kind of fun that they're taken from a random source,

off a random person, and then once you cut the eyes

out of the magazine and you put 'em onto the painting,

it takes a whole new life.

It can look one way in the magazine,

but then once I slap 'em on the painting,

it looks completely different.

Like, you would never even guess that it would be

on this top model, or this photo of a person on the street.

[pleasant music]

The most surprising part of the portrait

is probably the hummingbirds.

They represent peace and tranquility,

and also my grandma, she loved hummingbirds as well.

I think that her story also relates to Sojourner Truth

in terms of growing up in a very hard and difficult time,

and still finding a way to thrive.

And the fact that she looked to hummingbirds

as a way to keep hope alive,

I wanted to incorporate that into the painting as well.

[pleasant music]

I haven't seen the full cover version yet,

so I'm excited to see it.

Let's see.

Ooh!

Okay.

This looks like it could be it.

I'm pretty sure it's it.

It's such a difficult time that we're in right now,

and I would say it definitely gave me the fuel

to paint Sojourner Truth.

All right, let's see here.

And it also helped me understand

why I paint the skin pitch black,

because it's not about being realistic.

It's also about showing how apparent it is,

and how much it affects the way the image is perceived,

but also your life.

This is so unreal, like I'm shook right now.

Sojourner Truth.

I painted it.

What is life?

Here is Sojourner Truth, know her name, remember her.

It's just, feels good.

Black is not just strong, but it's also soft,

it's also elegant, it's also defined.

We do go through a lot, because of the color of our skin,

but there's also a lot of beauty,

there's also a lot of life,

there's also brightness and color to it as well.

[pleasant music]