“The Beautyful Ones” Series #3 2014

Curator: Look at this incredible piece by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, "The Beautyful Ones" Series #3, from 2014. It's a mixed-media painting and collage. Editor: Whoa. There's something so striking about their expressions. Like a shared knowing, but one girl is beaming while the other one is reserved. Curator: Crosby layers so many elements – acrylic paint, collage – it's almost like a visual palimpsest of identity. The way she integrates photographic transfers, those family portraits and Nigerian pop culture images, it creates this incredibly rich texture, literally and figuratively. Editor: The layering is intense. It almost feels overwhelming, but in a deliberate way. Is she trying to represent the weight of history, like it is a heavy dress that is weighing these figures down? I keep wanting to use my hands to separate it to be able to perceive its entirety. Curator: It speaks to the complex experience of existing between cultures, between Nigeria and the US. Each layer is a fragment of memory, a whisper of home. The title itself, “The Beautyful Ones,” evokes Ayi Kwei Armah's novel about post-independence Ghana, suggesting disillusionment and lost idealism. Editor: Exactly. And yet, these girls are resilient, right? They aren't weighed down in defeat; their positioning conveys strength. Look at the geometry of their stances versus the floral disarray below. There is nothing haphazard there. And the gaze – they demand you to be respectful! There's defiance in their eyes. Is she aiming to turn the disillusioned and the ugly towards dignity and empowerment? Curator: Crosby reclaims and redefines. These aren't just portraits; they are reclamations of beauty and resilience in the face of historical and personal complexities. Editor: And even the bits and pieces scattered around the floor look intentional – and almost optimistic – like confetti at the beginning of something fresh. I am interested in what that fresh moment might contain for them, even if society does not promise that the direction of history is towards hope. Curator: Seeing this work, I feel like I've been invited into a deeply personal space, a world where memory and identity are vibrant, fluid, and unapologetically complex. Editor: Yeah. The work reminds me that identity is an ongoing process of negotiating the past and creating the future, all at once.