September 2011

SKIN: America in Black and White

Born and raised in Ethiopia, Solomon Wondimu is an Assistant Gallery Director and Adjunct Faculty for the School of Art at George Mason University. For the past five years Wondimu has been working on Human Skin Color Project. Wondimu has always been perplexed by the signifying system which references the human race. Wondimu questions the distinct classifications of “Black” or “White” which describe an opposition that does not actually exist in nature.

Using a digital camera, Wondimu took forearm pictures of hundreds of participants. In Photoshop he then cut a square-inch section from each forearm finding an average of fifteen different colors in each of these sections, leading him to the discovery that no person is one single color. To accurately measure and record this, Wondimu took eight skin-color swatches, to represent the multi-coloredness of each participant. Based on the data, he has collected about 3,000 different colors that have become his palette to create digital and traditional artwork. Wondimu’s work includes video, painting, digital print, and sculpture.

Wondimu’s work goes beyond the physical attributes of SKIN. It is also about the conflict between the eye and the perceiving mind over the color of human skin. The eye sees its world without bias; however, the mind takes that information from the eye and translates it into social, political and religious master signifiers in order to further agendas, particularly subjugation of the Other. Wondimu perceives the mind as an abuse of the noblest sense of all: the eye. Wondimu’s work describes and exposes this conflict as it exists in both the micro and macro levels.

Visit Wondimu’s website at www.solomonwondimu.com.

Watch the artist interview here.