PLACE:

Water Valley, MS

BIO:

Adrienne Brown-David is a freelance artist living in a small, rural town in northern Mississippi. Though she is originally from St. Louis, Adrienne has lived in both Chicago (where she briefly attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and the Virgin Islands before settling in the south. Adrienne is a wife and mother of four daughters and the experience of motherhood greatly influences her work.

PROJECT:

This body of work seeks to explore the development of black identity and how we present ourselves to the world. The work asks a series of questions. What do I want others to see? How do I want to carry myself through society? What does it mean to be a woman? A man? Both? Neither? A child? An adult? Where is the line between those things? What does freedom of expression look like? And what does our expression look like when we are not free? How can we break out of societal constraints? What happens if we don’t? What happens if we defy conventionality? How does our blackness shade all of these things? The answers to these questions come when we are allowed to sit quietly in our own blackness/our own identity. When our existence is not one of educating, or shouting, or explaining, not one of seeking acceptance from others, we are able to sit quietly in the beauty of our humanity. Resting in the freedom to BE without question or explanation.