Color(ed) Theory Series
Color has guided much of the way I see the world and how I approach my artistic practice. Color(ed) Theory was a multiyear project that explored how academic and theoretical definitions of color map across veiled language used in American media/popular culture to describe racially charged city spaces.
What color is urban? What color is gentrification? What color is privilege?
Trusted friends and family joined me in covertly painting soon to be demolished, empty houses in and around Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. I'd developed a culturally coded, monochromatic color palette based on hues that are primarily found in consumer products that are marketed toward Black people. These colors dominate south side commercial corridors. The project questioned how colors possess socially constructed meanings and associations that are inextricably linked to the politics of race and class in America. The palette combined my academic/formal understanding of color theory with my lived sensibility of growing up as a colored girl on the South Side. Racism is my city's vivid hue.