Kenturah Davis Black As the Most Exquisite Color 2019
© Kenturah Davis. Courtesy Matthew Brown
Kenturah Davis creates cool, intimate portraits that combine elements of design, photography, and language. Davis merges an exploration of Black identity with the use of the written word as a pictorial element, delving deeply into the relationship between identity formation and language. Each portrait is created with an etching technique that combines lettering and drawing. Her works begin with a photo of someone the artist knows, which is converted into a large black–and–white image. Then, Davis creates a series of embossment plates or large sheets of wood that are run through an etching press. She then creates a grid on the image and assigns a letter to each square in the grid. A letter or phrase is subsequently stamped onto each square in the composition.
Black As the Most Exquisite Color consists of a blurred image of a woman in the black, white, and gray tones that characterize Davis’s work. At a distance, the viewer recognizes an image of a Black woman with a stern, powerful gaze, her hands resting self–assuredly on her waist. Upon closer inspection, the phrase “black as the most exquisite color” becomes readable to the viewer. The phrase was written by the artist. The combination of the phrase and the blurry imagery results in a portrait that oscillates between representation and abstraction.
Identification
Title
Black As the Most Exquisite Color
Production Date
2019
Object Number
2021.060a-b
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s International Women’s Committee Endowment, Craig Robins, and PAMM’s Collectors Council
Copyright
© Kenturah Davis. Courtesy Matthew Brown
https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2021.060a-b
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Physical Qualities
Medium
Oil applied with rubber letters on embossed and debossed Igarashi kozo paper
Dimensions
Two parts: 39 x 58 inches
Visual Description
Black As the Most Exquisite Color, by Kenturah Davis, is a drawing, comprised of oil applied with rubber letters on embossed and debossed Igarashi Kozo paper, made in 2019. While the image is arranged in a landscape format, it is a diptych, composed of two pieces of paper arranged portrait style placed side-by-side. Each panel measures thirty-nine by twenty-nine each, and thirty-nine by fifty-eight inches when placed together. Black As the Most Exquisite Color is a drawing that is composed of a series overlapping stamps in black oil paint on white debossed gridded paper. At the center of the two connecting framed papers, is a portrait of a dark-skinned woman. The collective image is two overlapping images of the same woman, but the edges meet at nearly the center of both sheets of paper.
Starting on the righthand side, the right sheet of paper contains the left shoulder of the sitter. The middle of the paper contains the farthest edge of the figure and is very faint, light and more transparent. Toward the left side of the right sheet of paper, the image is darker because the two left and right light images overlap and become darker. The woman wears a blouse that appears very textured. The folds and wrinkles of the blouse are very distinct and detailed, following the form of the woman. The folds are darkest near the edges of her body, around her collar, and where the fabric bunches on itself. On the left sheet of paper, one can see the rear of the head of the figure seen on the right. The back of her head overlaps with the front of a version of the figure that is shifted to her left. In the space where the two images overlap, the image is again slightly darker. In this overlapped area toward the center of the two panels, the top right portion of the woman’s black curly hair is visible. Beneath her hair is her forehead that appears darker at the center and lighter at the edges. The bridge of the woman’s nose, toward her left-most eye is at the left edge of the centered overlapped image. Her nose, mouth, and right cheek are visible at a slight angle, as her face is tilted to the left. On the farthest left is the rest of the image of the woman that is shifted towards the left. It is a very faint light gray. Toward the bottom half of the left sheet of paper is both the left of the centered image’s blouse, with distinct folds and creases of fabric. We can imagine that the woman’s hands are on her hips, as her forearm is raised, but cut off by the bottom edge of the image.
