De'Ja Marshall
Project: Outgrowth II
Artist Statement: I am a firm believer in visual art’s capacity to serve as a powerful conduit in the integration of inspiring marginalized communities through imagery with creative representational justice. Complicatedly, this series is a work in progress and is the second iteration of a more long-winded exploration of the concept of existence as resistance and its breadth. For as long as my work has been produced with the level of intention it hosts now, I have delved deeper and deeper into what resistance means to me and what role representation plays in it. I cannot remove the context of my identity from my art, nor do I aim to. Therefore, intersectionality inadvertently informs this series.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that we- within a societal context, do not do nearly enough to address the severe lack of the provision of space for Black voices
and talents, and what that lack of representation means for our communities. More pointedly, this work seeks to revitalize a conversation about what spaces Black women are expected in and how are we anticipated to show up. It begs the question, why it is that the legitimacy of Black women’s rights to self-actualization are to be decided by examinations established in white supremacist framework, internalized anti-blackness, and misogynoir. Outgrowing misguided analyses of our agency and the capacity we all hold to employ media and art as safe spaces to disseminate images that we feel are empowering, unifying, and liberating serves as the springboard from which this work leaps.
Artist Bio: De’Ja Marshall is a narrative tableau photographer based out of Tacoma, Washington. Her interest in photography was first piqued at ten years old while spending time with her grandfather’s digital camera. Over the course of her extensive photography journey, the subject matter with which she grappled through her art ebbed and flowed with the ever-changing interests of her youth. The latest iteration of her work centers QTPOC (Queer/Trans People of Color) communities and the pursuance of representational justice on behalf of her peers. As a recent graduate from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, De’Ja’s most recent work serves as a culmination of the development of her artistic praxis as an undergraduate student. It explores the nature of Black femininity and the fluidity of divine feminine energy as it persists outside of the white gaze.