I am excited to share that Stories of Black Leadership show is opening in the Black Cultural Archives on 29th February and continues till 6th of June.
In the summer of this year, the Black Cultural Archives commissioned me to create portraits of five prominent Black British women. This continues the archives initiative ‘Stories of Black Leadership’ which is sponsored by JP Morgan. In this new work for the series the focus is on women from the diversity of fields who have broken through barriers to open doors and make a significant contribution to society and the world.
The inspiration behind the works I have produced are portrait paintings of the 17th, 18th and 19th century depicting European white man, made as indicators of position and power. I have utilised these tropes to picture the selected women as being truly in their power and claiming their rightful seat at ‘the table’. The exhibition entitled ‘Breaking Barriers’ opens at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton early in 2020.
BCA opened its Heritage Centre in 2014 with the exhibition Re-imagine: Black Women in Britain. With this exhibition they sought to encourage, and in some cases challenge, visitors to reflect on their image of Black womanhood and to engage with the many and varied significant contributions that Black women have made to British life. This is how Stories of Black Leadership was born. Stories of Black Leadership is a series of artist commissions and oral histories spotlighting Black leadership, sponsored by JP Morgan.