Paradigm
The works of “Paradigm” are my most personal to date. Growing up as a product of an interracial relationship, I never felt like I truly belonged to the “black side” or the “white side” of his family. The bulk of my new work focuses on the duality of what it means to be “bi-racial in America”. Each recurring detail in all of the work is deliberate and a callback to a very specific set of memories I associate with being introduced to “race” during my childhood.
The doubling of the faces is intended to illustrate what it feels like to be two people at once as well as make the viewer slightly uncomfortable mirroring what bi-racial people feel in those “where do I fit in” situations.
Even though different models are used, I feel every one of these pieces is a “self-portrait”. All of the figures are on a grey background that is representative of a childhood memory of me learning to mix colors. Once I learned that black and white make “grey” I started jokingly telling people I was “grey”. “Grey” was also chosen to make the viewer focus on the face of the model.
The fluorescent bar at the top of each piece is a call back to another memory from my childhood. One of the conversations I had with my mom (a white woman with 4 “black” children) that stands out the most is her telling me “It’s not enough for you to be as good as your white counterparts, you need to be twice as good to receive half the recognition.” The fluorescent line at the top of each piece represents “the bar” and how high the bar is set. Like football, the first down markers, as well as the end-zone pylons, are clearly marked with a hyper bright orange-red so the players know, even from a distance the mark they are trying to reach. This fluorescent line coupled with the grey backgrounds add to making the image “vibrate” and while it draws the viewer in, it makes it really difficult and uncomfortable to look at.
Truly inspiring and relatable work from my friend and artist, Jeremy Biggers.
