Oil on found boat door.
42cm x 96cm
2021

The door was sourced whilst on a trip to rural Sussex. I found it in a skip whilst out walking.
The painting is portrait of a girl looking surrean but proudly wearing her traditional hair. The painting is a le homage to black women and the celebration of natural hair and traditional hairstyles. A black woman is 80% more likely than a white woman to change her natural hair to meet social norms or expectations at work. Recent efforts to ban hair discrimination have amplified the struggle for women of colour and their natural hair, particularly in the workplace. Senator Cory Booker has proposed the first bill in history to ban hair discrimination at the federal level.

“Implicit and explicit biases against natural hair are deeply ingrained in workplace norms and society at large. This is a violation of our civil rights, and it happens every day for black people across the country,” said Senator Booker.
(Cache McClay, BBC News, Washington 13.12.2019)