Photography is the leading art medium for Black women visual artists. Each one takes a different approach on subject matter, shifting the dialogue beyond the typical straightforward media. For British-Jamaican Maxine Walker, she focuses on self-portraiture, placing busts of herself in complex situations, compelling makeups like an actress taking on many parts. There is an interest in interior versus exterior: the absence of space and objects, the presence of the Black body in a specific environment, and the psychological/emotional significance of physical expression.
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| Untitled, black and white print, 1997, frieze. |
Born in London, England, Maxine Walker worked diligently in the 1980’s and 1990’s, bringing awareness to Black aesthetics to audiences. Her photography takes on concealing identity— a task all too familiar to Black women. In one piece, she stares directly at the viewer, hand at her shadowed face, peeling a clear thin membrane of perhaps a beauty mask. Light concentrates on her tightened skin, the sheen of residue remaining as the fisted hand grips the pull. This powerful metaphor allows the privacy invasion and arouses several complicated questions. How much of humanity is authentic and real outside of our own homes? Yet, simultaneously, how much do individuals react to loneliness, to being confronted with themselves? If we strip down, what will be the remains? The emphasis on the pensiveness, the texture of locs, remark on the undeniable strengths of natural blackness— that that cannot ever be taken away.
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| Untitled, silver gelatin print, part of a triptych that is 9.625 x 9.375 in width., 1991, Light Works Collection, Syracuse, NY. |
In
frieze, Rianna Jade Parker tied Alice Walker’s womanism theory into Maxine Walker’s Autograph exhibit, “Walker’s self-portraiture is a testament to this womanist praxis, an independent practice that affords some women the tools to appreciate themselves as themselves, if not for the pleasure then at least for the principle.”
In
Multi-Ethic Britain 2000+, New Perspectives in Literature, Film, and the Arts, Stuart Hall added, “Walker ‘plays’ alternately, the working girl-about-town, sober church sister, sophisticated raver, and blond babe. At first, this switching-identity business looks like a playful game.”
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| Untitled, color photographic prints, 1995, frieze. |
Maxine Walker has exhibited in London and is in collections in the United States. An advocate for Black artists, she co-founded Autograph in 1988– a place for Black photographers to showcase their talents.
Currently, she lives and works in Birmingham, England.
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