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     Crown and Glory is a series of oil paintings focusing on the negativity often associated with natural African American hair. 

 

     Within the article Why Don’t He Like My Hair: Constructing African Americans Standards of Beauty, Bertram D. Ashe commented on the relationships between African Americans and society by stating, “African Americans, with traditional African features, have always had an uneasy coexistence with the European ideal of beauty.” These European ideals of beauty include having light skin and long straight hair. These are features that the majority of the Black race does not have.

 

         Having natural hair myself, I has faced a lot of ridicule and negative views towards my coils.  Drawing from those experiences I create paintings and drawings to celebrate natural hair for its unique distinctiveness and beauty. 

 

     Elaborating on this topic, I created a series of oil paintings entitled, “Crown and Glory.” This series is about a celebration of natural African American hair. I painted the portraits of several individuals from different angles, focusing on their hair. Within the hair, I added words like nappy and ignorant to symbolize the negativity often added to Black hair in society and the media. I wanted to portray the concept of celebrating natural hair for its distinctiveness, as well as challenge original views placed on a race due to their hair.