Claudette Johnson
2018
Pastel and gouache on paper
163 x 133 cm
In this work, Claudette Johnson depicts herself in an abstracted space with an array of African carvings. Although she adopts an assured pose, commanding and exceeding the full height of the paper, nothing is fixed in place. The work animates her complex identity as a Black European artist of Caribbean and African heritage. Creating new space for the presence of Black subjects has underpinned Johnson’s art since the beginning of her career: this particular work has close connections, visually and thematically, to one of her major early drawings, And I Have My Own Business in This Skin.