Genevieve De Leon

Notes Toward Drawing a Brown Figure


"Notes toward Drawing a Brown Figure" makes physical a reconsideration of my visual vocabulary. Having realized that I unconsciously draw figures whose skin tone is lighter than my own, I set out to retrain my hand and eye. Each note represents an attempt to draw a brown figure. Some are studies from photographs. Others are invented. The piece as a whole represents a self-determined ritual to end this intimate aspect of my internalized oppression. Pictured below are the three hundred and twenty notes, installed in the proportions of a Mayan ceremonial cloth, in the Minneapolis College of Art Design Gallery.