“A Portrait of the Artist Emerging from the Shadow of Her Former Self” a digital collage portrait. Captured, styled, directed, lit by me 🫶🏾 These photos are inspired by @kerryjamesmarshall_ ‘s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self”. Despite the painting’s purpose of capturing the nuances of Blackness, I didn’t see myself in the painting... at all. Marshall’s work is inspired by Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”— a story about an unidentified, Black, male narrator attempting to navigate his disillusionment towards the vile reality of yt supremacy. However, in his navigation, he fails to do the truly courageous thing of facing his internalized anti-blackness, and essentially becomes (for a lack of better terms) a coon. After suffering the deceit of powerful yt men, Mary Rambo (the story’s only Black femme character) nurses the narrator back to health. The narrator then leaves the safety of Mary’s home, joins a self-righteous and counterintuitive Black advocacy group called the “Brotherhood”, and fucks a yt woman that sees him only as a Mandingo fetish. Soon after, the town’s Black population riot against the Brotherhood— thus targeting the narrator. Whilst being perused by two yt men, the narrator tries to make it back to his saving grace, Mary, but fails and is forced into hiding. As a Black woman, the only place I see myself in Ellison’s— and thus Marshall’s work— is in the rehabilitation center that is Mary Rambo. In America, Black femmes are more intelligent and self-sustaining than our male counterparts, yet misogynoir and patriarchal hegemony forces us towards the bottom of America’s implicit caste system. Finally, I was raised to never challenge the systems that oppress me as a Black woman. Unfortunately, I was groomed to make space for men, and it was only through self honesty and real love that I was able to (and continue to) unlearn this. Therefore, as an individual who is constantly learning and embracing my nuances, “The Shadow of my Former Self” represents the internalized misogynoir that was forced onto me. As I grow from it, I shine victoriously in living color!!