ABOUT

Concept
To create artwork in response to an acrostic style poem created by an spoken word artist. The titular poem 'WOMANHOOD' was performed on the open mic portion of the evening at Jazz versus Jukebox at the Hoxton Hall in 2018.

Execution
I wanted to create a piece that captured the duality of being a woman and the double standards that were prominent in the poem. I looked at referencing common sayings used to often express hypocrisy in scenarios such as 'Catch 22' and 'A double-edged sword'. I eventul;ly settled on the latter phrase, believing that this would be easier to capture and portray visually and literally.

Result
This resulted in 3 images framed together. Portraits of black women serve as the blade and the image of biological women's reproductive organs serving as the hilt/handle merged to create the swords/daggers as the prominent image. The pattern in each background references the petals of flowers, which are often associated with femininity and delicacy to further support the notion of womanhood being a 'double-edged' sword