Stained Me:
Exhibit No. 3
A Black woman stands inside a box, surrounded by a target, evidence markers, and bullet-like wounds. This piece considers what happens when Black women speak inside institutions and become marked for disrupting what was meant to remain comfortable. “Stained Me” names both the harm imposed upon us and the mark we refuse not to leave.
The Cost of 100%
Study I: American Record
I began this work by putting my hands into black paint because I needed to feel and hold my Blackness somewhere safe. The imperfect target became a record of Black women who spoke, resisted, organized, and disrupted. Their dates sit beside women whose lives reveal another cost: being expected to give everything while carrying what institutions refuse to name.
The Cost of 100%
Study II: American Color
The same target appears in bright color, but the history underneath it has not changed. Black women are celebrated, watched, remembered, and targeted at the same time. The color draws the eye while the names and dates ask the viewer to stay. When our voices become difficult to hear, the image keeps speaking.
