Doin It Smooth, Nov 2020, Acrylic on wooden panel, 18 x 24 inches.
DANA ROBINSON
Artist Statement
I am a multidisciplinary artist addressing the topics of youth, black female identity, ownership, and nostalgia through combining, reproducing, and destroying vintage Black media. I often select stylized advertisement images from vintage Ebony magazines that sell the idea of upward mobility and a growing Black middle class through alluring objects: cosmetics, cigarettes, alcohol, and clothing. By obscuring, cutting and manipulating the advertisements, my works question the relentless glamour and optimism of the American culture industry. As the images are subverted and divorced from their pages, the expectations of success and respectability Ebony tells us to strive for becomes absurd and excessive.
My own work is inserted into the lifecycle of Black images and the way they circulate through my cannibalistic practice, creating the possibility for us to deviate from the standards set out for us. Employing a language of humor and relaxation, I open up a complex space of laughter and irony, while retaining an empathetic quality. The familiar warmness of the vintage materials creates a homelike and inviting environment, allowing for a space of vulnerability.
As I rearrange these images into an airy, atomized spread of abstract and dispersed parts, I strip them of their original power to promote the consumption of the products. I hack the tools given to us to achieve personal fulfillment and aim to use my new tools to envision and map a future that honors Black life.