Confession Salon / Bedroom Confession, 2020
In this diptych, the artist’s personal reflections are interlaced with quotations from Kobena Mercer’s essay Black Hair/Style Politics and Emma Dabiri’s Don’t Touch My Hair.
In Part 1 we see Niang having her hair braided in a salon in Senegal, where the large poster of a white woman is evidence of the Eurocentric beauty ideals prevalent in postcolonial Senegalese society. In Part 2 she undoes her braids in her bedroom in England. Niang says of the work:
“The pieces are a genuine reflection of my personal process of uncovering the information for the development of my hair care.”
Watercolour Portraits, 2020 |
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A series of Watercolour Portraits are displayed in the image gallery below. Visitors are encouraged to combine the viewing of these paintings with Our Hair, a podcast produced by the artist with the five women in the portraits. Listen via the Media section below.
“By making portraits of the same people with different hairstyles, I show that there’s more to black women’s identity than natural hair.”Inspired by Chris Ofili’s Untitled (1998) watercolour series, Niang illustrates the versatility of black hairstyling – beyond just the afro hairstyles featured in Ofili’s series – representing styles such as weaves, wigs and braids. |
