Good Hair

Mixed Media on canvas

2018

Good Hair speaks to the upliftment and love for all women of colour. The influence of colourism and hair type bias has been an ugly remnant of a social conditioning adopted from slavery that is still very much alive and well today. The media constantly promotes whiteness and colourism over features that are associated with darker skin and African features.  

This type of social brainwashing has been engrained in our collective psyche for so long that many truly believe for hair to be good hair it must be a straighter, silkier texture; inherently good hair should be more like Caucasian hair. Words like “kinky”, “coily” and “nappy” took on negative connotations that were used to inflict harm and diminish the self esteem of so many young girls and women.

The media has been a major contributor to the idea that our hair is bad hair. My piece seeks to negate this notion by displaying a woman of colour with a larger than life afro. Her brown skin has a textured wood grain that is juxtaposed against the most beautiful arrangement of exotic and vibrant flora.  The blue background colour was used to add a regal feel to the piece. Our locks grow up and out towards the sun like flowers do naturally; intermingling and intertwining in all their glory. Black hair of any texture is the embodiment of good hair. Black hair is beautiful, and we are intrinsically beautiful too.

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Listen to an IG live discussion with Rhonda Williams/Indira Wills with our resident artist, L.E.M. on this art piece and on colourism, anti-blackness, & hair politics in Antigua and Barbuda and the wider Caribbean.