Painted Ladies

Artist Statement: Painted Ladies
I came across the concept of creating paintings with photographs while studying artist Alexa Meade and decided to do my own rendition of the idea. This photo is both a work of painting and photographic art. I spent time analyzing the model’s unique features and deciding which to emphasize and which to hide. With a base coat of purple, I began to build over top of her skin an entirely new form.Even though I gave my model a new appearance, she remained the same entity in a different shell. At first glance, my first impression is not “purple”, it is “beautiful”. Both beautiful and alien, to me, she represents the social construct of race and how our society segregates humans into categories based on their appearance and color.