Gorgeous Black-And-White Portraits Explore The Meaning Of Multiracial Identities

"I began this project because I recognized that I was part of a underrepresented group of people," artist Samantha Wall explained in an email to HuffPost. "It’s difficult to talk about multiraciality with individuals who can’t understand our perspective. It’s not as simple as being part this and part that, our identities can’t be so easily divided. But art is a language that lends itself to communicating experiences too difficult to comprehend through words alone." 

Sigourney

For her project "Indivisible," Wall explores the meaning of multiracial identities in Korea and the United States through a series of black-and-white portraits. The images show models staring fearlessly at the viewer, flashing a smile, a laugh and sometimes even a grimace. Wall's charcoal and ink illustrations attempt to convey, as she notes, a feeling that words cannot. "Through this work I am exposing the plurality of emotions that sculpt human subjectivity," she writes on her website. "The drawings of these women are portals into the human psyche, a place where emotions call out and perceived racial boundaries dissolve."

To create her works, Wall stages photography sessions, engaging each individual model in conversations that vary from person to person while she snaps their portraits. Some conversations are more broad and political, others are intimate and personal, but all are meant to reveal the shared experience of being a multiracial woman. Instead of drawing her subjects live, she utilizes photography as a means of recording the myriad expressions produced during a one or two hour conversation. She then combs through hundreds of digital photos, looking for one that best captures an exchange. 

Amelia

"The images provide a structure for my drawing yet it is the interpersonal connection made during the photo shoot that allows me to translate the emotional memories of our shared experiences onto paper," she states. "There is no other way for me to create these portraits. Each portrait is more than just a likeness, it communicates a shared subjectivity and what makes these women unique as individuals."

"Photographs can capture something my eyes can’t detect," she adds, "facial expressions that are subtle and swift." 

Gia

South Korea-born, Portland, Oregon-based Wall transforms the selected photographs into her minimal illustrations, images that leave naked parts of the women's faces, torsos and hands in an attempt to focus the viewer's eyes on the specific idiosyncrasies she's chosen to highlight. There is no color added to her drawings, so any reference to skin tone is notably absent. For her subjects, Wall hopes that "Indivisible" allows the women to feel a little less alone during their time together. For herself, she recognizes that this project provides an opportunity for the artist to engage in difficult conversations about race.

"Multiracial individuals must navigate between cultural histories and social boundaries while our very existence questions, and consequently threatens, the integrity of those boundaries," she concluded. "I think that’s a great thing but it’s also an experience that can be alienating and frightening." 

Nadia

Ashley

Ajna

Carmen

Chrissi

Rosana

Samantha

Let Your Eyes Adjust to the Dark

Let Your Eyes Adjust to the Dark is a collection of drawings that delve into my obsession with the internal emotional states that separate us as individuals, while simultaneously linking us as a whole. The expression of emotions provides a doorway into private experiences that reveal our commonality, a smile could indicate pleasure and a frown, sorrow. These communicable emotions reach outward from within, making our bodies transparent. I am interested in the emotions that are more difficult to penetrate and are cloaked even from our own awareness. These are the emotions that sculpt our psyches, erect psychological boundaries, and fill our shadows.

Credits
Photos by Dan Kvitka
This project was funded in part by the Oregon Arts Commission's Individual Artist Fellowship

 

 

 

Red, White, Black and Blue

The body is a fragile mass of meat that bruises, sickens and decays. It is the conduit through which we experience our lives and it will eventually fail. Every day is a reminder that it is weak, flawed, and inescapable. We feed it antacids, aspirin, antihistamines, and antibiotics to cure one ailment or another. However, it is also a vessel to express and share emotions. Through the body, love, joy, rage, and fear are communicated. Raw emotions, though intangible and often incompletely relatable, heighten the sense of being within one’s body. This sensation ignites strength, solidity, and the power of one’s flesh and bones. I’m interested in the startling awareness of one’s corporeality during these moments of intensity. Innate interior forces anesthetize our perception of the intrinsic weakness of our physical form. And perhaps suggest that it is only because of the delicate nature of our flesh that emotions are so fiercely felt.

gouache & conte crayon on paper, 2008