The Restoration / Not Your Blackamoor, 2025

38 × 36 ″ Framed: 50 × 48 ″ acrylic paint and hand stitched threadwork on archival pigment print

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A photographic portrait of a Black woman standing against a backdrop of clouds. She wears a decorated hat that I adorned with golden flowers and brooches, including a Blackamoor brooch, an object that, despite its history being tied to reducing Black figures to ornamental objects, continues to circulate and be replicated. Among the brooches are a bird and a bee brooch, both symbols of ancestral messaging and guidance, as they are believed to move between the heavens and earth carrying messages from your loved ones.

The hat is loosely inspired by the elegant church hats worn by my grandmother, aunts, and many Black women who dress in their finest for Sunday service. Though not a churchgoer myself, the memory of their pride in dressing up remains a memory that sticks with me.

The photograph itself is hand-embellished with handstitched cowrie shells, acrylic paint and golden thread.