Lay It Down (On The Edge Of Beauty)

Lay it Down (On The Edge Of Beauty), 2018



Lay it Down (On The Edge Of Beauty) is the first sculpture of a woman's head that I've done. Previously I sculpted Black men because theirs is an experience I could relate to, as a Black man. When it came to women, I didn't want to go into it lightly and presume to know the workings of their minds—given that I was intent on capturing those truthful 'in-between' moments. And even after discussions with women about this over the years—particularly women of colour—who have told me, consistently and in no uncertain terms, that they want to be seen, to be represented, I still felt like I didn't necessarily know how to. Now I realise there doesn't need to be a neat symmetry between the work I make of men and my work on women. This freed me to talk about the things I do understand. For one, how in popular culture, media, and fashion it's common to take aspects, or signifiers, of Black womanhood and use them while not acknowledging those from whom they are taken or, worse yet, castigating and demonising their originators—taking certain hairstyles and placing them on white models, pretending it's some innovation, while punishing young Black women for wearing the same hair.This new sculpture, Lay It Down, looks at 'baby hairs'. It's slightly smaller than the heads in my 'Numen' series, which refer to Greek and Egyptian deities, but the idea of deifying is still present—so I cast it in bronze but without giving it a patina so I could have an overt sense of the material come through. The work has been well received so I'm looking forward to making more of them. I'm beginning to get together the reference material for the next works in the series right now, so there should be enough for a show in 2020, if not sooner.