On Portraying Black Femme Identity

The Phillips Collection Fellow Arianna Adade talks to Sydney Vernon about how she depicts Black womanhood. Sydney Vernon: Interior Lives is on view at Phillips@THEARC through June 6.

How do the stories and traditions passed down in your family inspire the narratives you weave into your artwork, particularly those centered around black femme identity?

The women in my immediate family are all very different. This show was just a slice, particularly my mom’s life. It doesn’t aim to show the range; it’s more about color and form. In my paintings, I isolate between joy and trauma, and this exhibition is more on the “joy” side. I do like to represent that happy space, which is seen in a couple of my artworks. This is not a “Black girl joy” narrative in its entirety, though. I try to balance moments of benevolence and the realities of what is often expected of a specific archetype of woman.

How do you balance the intimate, personal aspects of your family and community experiences with the broader, societal conversations you aim to engage with through your art?

Three or four years ago, one of my professors asked: “If you ran out of family photos, what would you do?” This made me question if family photos are also necessary, which is when I started to move to abstraction. Barbara Chase-Riboud is one of my favorite abstract artists., but there are few Black women in the art world highlighted in abstraction. Seeing the lack of diversity in the art world, I think of art as a microcosm for showcasing Black femme identities. I want to be a bit more of a rebel and take more risks in broadening what Black women are supposed to look like.

What themes or symbols do you intentionally incorporate to convey the interconnectedness of family and community in your paintings?

A new symbol I have enjoyed returning to is this head in this afro-comb as architecture. In my studio, I was thinking about what this could mean: Black women as landscape, Black women as time, etc. Through-line and blood-line are important, too. I like depth in images and backgrounds, and being able to dissect faces in artwork.

Through your archival process in your artwork, how has your mother’s role in your life impacted the way you illustrate her and perceive the Black femme identity?

My mom is from the projects in New York. Her life’s mission is to find beauty in life and make life beautiful. I want to put her in art that shows her beauty and adds a specialness. I worked directly with the photos to retain the likeness of my mom. She has become a character, in a sense, in this world, and she loves it. It is more about humanity and sometimes showing vulnerability. It’s not all about strength and carrying the world on your shoulders. Just being in a space that feels safe and having a good time. It’s more of a respect thing, an exchange of caretaking through artwork and creating my mom in a world where they are immortalized.