Disjointed 2020

Editor: So here we have Kayla Mahaffey's "Disjointed" from 2020, made with acrylic paint. There is something both playful and unsettling about the portrait. How do you see the painting, with a focus on its materials and construction? Curator: This piece intrigues me through the lens of material culture and its social implications. The use of acrylic paint, a mass-produced and readily available material, democratizes art-making. Mahaffey appropriates pop-art and surrealist visual vocabulary – the bright colors, the cartoonish elements – blurring boundaries between 'high art' and consumer culture, don't you think? Editor: I see what you mean, the cartoonish icons do have a familiar mass-produced feel about them! So, in using such readily available materials and recognizable imagery, is she commenting on the accessibility of art itself or perhaps something else? Curator: I believe the readily available images combined with this specific method opens discussions about labor and access to imagery. The subject, a young Black girl, juxtaposed with these elements prompts us to think about the production and consumption of Black childhood within the social media era, and more broadly the commodification of childhood innocence. How are the materials themselves contributing to this narrative? Editor: So, it’s less about the surface and more about what making the painting this way *says*. Thinking about the horizontals running across the piece like bands, cutting across the figure, maybe creating distance, too… Almost like a manufactured detachment. Curator: Precisely. They are not merely aesthetic choices; they materially and conceptually disrupt the image, forcing us to confront the constructed nature of representation. It suggests the young Black girl’s image, presented by digital companies and pop art's tradition, might only reveal partial truths and the effects it has on one's personal experience and emotions. Editor: I hadn't considered the ways in which material and execution are central to her statement, highlighting the intersection between readily-available iconography and representation itself. Curator: Right, hopefully this discussion reveals the profound ways in which artistic choices are not merely superficial aesthetics, but rather deliberate negotiations within a complex social fabric.