“My work is about Black people trying to understand their existence as they walk the path to self-actualization, using liminality as a ground for exploring the psychological effects of this experience. Liminality refers to a state of transition or in betweenness. This is typically in relation to a rite of passage, but the concept can be interpreted and applied very broadly. Black Americans exist in a liminal state because of our history as the descendants of enslaved people from West Africa, and our tenuous American citizenship.  I am interested in the politics of representation, the role of the viewer, and Black subjectivity. I use domestic spaces as sites for introspection, presenting them in a distorted, flat manner to reflect and emphasize the incongruence between Black people and the environments they inhabit in society.

The use of distortion in my work serves to disrupt the traditional rules of painting, and to give power back to Black subjects that have long been relegated to the sidelines or served as objects of fetishization. I approach compositions like collages, mixing personal photographs with imagined spaces and objects that all follow different perspective and lighting rules, creating a questionable, disjointed sense of reality.  I want viewers to feel aware of their role as voyeur, pulled into the painting but also disoriented by the lack of denial of a satisfying experience through what has been stripped from these environments and what has been manipulated.”

- Kaleigh Blevins