Pick Me, Pick Me Not
- Title
- Pick Me, Pick Me Not
- Description
- Black Joy, to me, is a gentle whisper in the ear. It’s the side-eye I give to Eurocentric beauty standards and the proud nod I offer to Heaven every time I create. My work is a joyful interruption, a textured clap back to the centuries-long identity crisis we never asked for. I mainly use painting (acrylics, oils) and actual hair waste as both medium and message. Yes, discarded hair. Because even what the world calls waste, I see as a treasure. My canvases center traditional African hairstyles not as nostalgia, but as necessary. Each strand, braid, or parting I paint is a mirror, one that invites viewers to unlearn the narrative that natural African aesthetics must be tamed, altered, or erased to be valid. Through hair, I tackle the inferiority complex head-on (pun intended). The kind that whispers our beauty needs “fixing.” My art doesn’t whisper back, it roars. It says: your roots are enough. Your texture, your history, your joy - none of it needs translation or permission. In every portrait, I’m not just documenting Black beauty, I’m disarming shame and re-educating pride. I want my work to feel like an exhale. Like standing in the mirror and finally seeing not a “before and after,” but a “here I am.” Because we can all agree that there’s power in joy. There’s healing in hair. And there’s activism in loving yourself unapologetically in a world that profits off your doubt.
- Place
- Arlington (Tex.)
- Format
- Oil on wooden roundelle, 12 in. in diameter
- Rights Holder
- Nkamwesiga, Conrad Desire
- Media
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Pick Me, Pick Me Not