Colorism: Looking Outside the Brown Paper Bag, evaluates issues of intergroup discrimination among women within the African-American community based comparisons of skin tone and complexion known as colorism. As a subcategory of racism, colorism has encouraged an ideological mode of thinking that places favoritism upon lighter skin tones, straight hair and other European phenotypic characteristics. The methods and materials of the brown paper bag test are used as a vehicle to show how colorism has affected the lives of African-American women from slavery to present day. The brown paper bag test is an unscientific test that was employed by African-Americans by laying a brown bag against a fellow African-American's face or arm. Only individuals with a skin color lighter or the same color as a brown paper bag were seen as beautiful and allowed to have certain privileges. While the test may not be used any longer, the attitudes it exposed are still prevalent within African- American culture.

I specifically selected to concentrate on African-American women, even though colorism is not exclusive to women or African-Americans. In my research, I have established that Black women tend to suffer more psychological and emotional damage from colorism than men. The portrait drawings and installation work included in my exhibition explore the nuanced and complex experience African-American women have with standardized ideas of beauty, while addressing issues surrounding hair politics, classism, acceptance, and identity. The work is intended to introduce audiences to the historical dimension of colorism, and to give the viewer a glimpse of the stereotypical criticism African-American women face throughout their lifetime regarding treatment and value based solely on physicality. This work will provide understanding for those unaware of this multifaceted phenomenon that affects women in the African-American community, building a dialog concerning how we perceive those with darker skin hues and why we all buy into the notion of beauty and stereotypes when it comes to race and color in America.