Identity is the way we perceive and express ourselves. Factors and conditions that an individual is born with—such as ethnic heritage, sex, or one’s body—often play a role in defining one’s identity. However, many aspects of a person’s identity change throughout his or her life. People’s experiences can alter how they see themselves or are perceived by others. Conversely, their identities also influence the decisions they make: Individuals choose their friends, adopt certain fashions, and align themselves with political beliefs based on their identities. Many artists use their work to express, explore, and question ideas about identity.
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Your challenge is to create a portrait that depicts your identity. Use materials of your choice, but include the following:
Things to Consider
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Antoine Williams
My interdisciplinary practice is an investigation of power, perception, and fear as they relate to institutional inequality. I have created a mythology, about the complexities of contemporary Black life. My artwork is influenced by social science fiction and sci-fi literature from such authors as Octavia Butler, and H.P. Lovecraft. Themes in science fiction, such as relationships to what may be considered a foreign or alien body, can be analogous to the many Black experiences in America. With that, I explore what is called “monster culture” through the lens of critical race theory. The result is a process-based practice involving mixed-media installation, painting, drawing, collage and assemblage.
Much of my work references the west coast Black arts assemblage movement of the 1960s and 70s, arte porvera, as well as the Dadaist, who appropriated and re-contextualized images from society as a subversive act. In the vein of Felix Gonzales-Torres, I am interested in making the personal, public. Therefore, these works are inspired by personal experiences from a rural working-class, upbringing, in Red Springs, North Carolina that related to wider contemporary concerns of race, class, and, masculinity. Inspired by the Amiri Baraka poem “Something in the Way of Things”, these work lives in the intangible spaces that exist within the contradictions of the human condition.
My interdisciplinary practice is an investigation of power, perception, and fear as they relate to institutional inequality. I have created a mythology, about the complexities of contemporary Black life. My artwork is influenced by social science fiction and sci-fi literature from such authors as Octavia Butler, and H.P. Lovecraft. Themes in science fiction, such as relationships to what may be considered a foreign or alien body, can be analogous to the many Black experiences in America. With that, I explore what is called “monster culture” through the lens of critical race theory. The result is a process-based practice involving mixed-media installation, painting, drawing, collage and assemblage.
Much of my work references the west coast Black arts assemblage movement of the 1960s and 70s, arte porvera, as well as the Dadaist, who appropriated and re-contextualized images from society as a subversive act. In the vein of Felix Gonzales-Torres, I am interested in making the personal, public. Therefore, these works are inspired by personal experiences from a rural working-class, upbringing, in Red Springs, North Carolina that related to wider contemporary concerns of race, class, and, masculinity. Inspired by the Amiri Baraka poem “Something in the Way of Things”, these work lives in the intangible spaces that exist within the contradictions of the human condition.
