Researcher ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8059-4173

Graduation Year

2021

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Art

Reader 1

Kasper Kovitz

Reader 2

Tia Blassingame

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2020 Blake D Morton

Abstract

I constantly experience external pressure to make identity-related artwork in response to the ongoing racial-reckoning occurring in the United States.

Initially, I was concerned with the pitfalls of creating identity-art. One of which being pigeon-held as a Black artist— whose sole function is to share my vulnerable experiences —and be commodified and diluted for superficial consumption. A Black artist whose work would only be valuable when institutions needed to satisfy a diversity quota, a Black History Month initiative or to conduct damage control after being “canceled.”

All of which may very well still happen. I’ve utilized this project to work through my anxieties about contributing to the “woke economy.” I am more interested in developing my visual vocabulary for discussing racial identity. A visual vocabulary to explore and critique the very structures that bastardize the voices of Black artists.

Link to Image Gallery

https://joinwithcomputeraudio.com/Blake

Download

Included in

Painting Commons

Share

COinS