In my work I have been unavoidably attracted to the process of self-identity. It is something that is often seen as a journey to the discovery of authenticity. For me, this idea that authenticity is inherent in self-identity has created tension between how I self identify and how I am being identified by the people around me. It led me to think about myself as a woman and how this role has historically been identified and conceptualized in relation to men. Specifically, straight white men. 

 

I found myself searching for authenticity in a space where I don’t even have the tools to properly locate any form of identity, much less that of a woman of color.

 

I am resentful and I am upset. I feel robbed of my own experience and stripped of stability in my own body.

 

This series is coming to terms with the way my identity has been objectified and sexualized. And how that objectification and sexualization is recycled time and time again, always locating a version of itself that best suits the straight white man in the specific conditions of that place and time. 

 

This series is a cathartic experience where I objectify and sexualize the straight white man back.

 

In the process I found myself also capturing vulnerability and treating the body with a form of tenderness that was self-aware of the fact that I have loved white men in my life. 

 

A search into identity became a reconciliation of love and resentment of my own oppressor.