Responses

-        Color theory in relation to painting the skin is something that I believe has been standardized. History has been “white washed” to believe that skin color is just this white, peach, or slightly tanned color that is easy to mix, but when presented against outside influences such as a darker background, in this case, changes must be made to the mixture in order to achieve that “sameness.” I didn’t quite reach the same color against the darker background, it was a struggle for me to reach the color of my own skin. A postmodern viewer could potentially find the struggle of trying to reach the sameness shown here as attempting to reach the “white standard.”

-        The black and white paintings follow an almost AbEx feel and flow, constructing nonsensical patterns, and one could almost be representational but could also not be. The modernist approach to viewing these paintings would be to discuss how these paintings related to the use and essence of the paint itself, not necessarily the painting.

1.      How can painting your own skin color open up a discussion about race and color? What about color privilege?

2.      Would the abstract paintings mean more if you could see them in person, or are they exactly what they are from the image?

3.      Would you hang something like this in your house? Why or why not?