Kianna Cooper

As a black woman born and raised in predominantly white spaces, I often found myself struggling with the relationship between the identity I’ve adopted overtime to assimilate into white spaces, and the intrinsic identity of being a black woman in spaces void of whiteness. Making art offered me an escape from reality – a means to cope with this. It gave me time to be with my thoughts in a way that was positive and uplifting, even though I often felt isolated and misunderstood. My work aims to explore the dichotomy of these two experiences and to come to terms with who I am because of it. The work I make is largely completed in either oil paint or clay due to the forgiving nature and tangibility of the materials. I find pencil and paper to be too suggestive and controlled for the themes that present themselves in my work – self-liberation, black femininity, and black aesthetics.