QUEER|ART|PRIZE 2022 RECENT WORK FINALIST

All of our Soft Parts (2022) BY MARIE AMEGAH

Marie Amegah is a visual artist currently based in the Baltimore-Washington DC area of the United States. Her work encircles themes of immigration, identity, queer storytelling, nostalgia, and human connection. She explores these core themes through various 2D media such as painting, illustration, collage and books. In the past few years, her work has been shown in numerous shows in the DC area, a televised news program and in a couple online exhibitions.

All of our Soft Parts (2022)

With a focus on time spent together, this series of mixed media paintings explore the way we anchor each other through touch. Saturated with a black lesbian perspective, the gaze in the work sets the stage for a conversation between the figures and the viewer. The women portrayed in these life-sized paintings are depicted in moments of rest and togetherness. Who are we in the presence of women we love? Where do we lay our arms? How do we rest our head? What does our caress look like? This body of work is made in an effort to set the stage for black queer femmes to see themselves and their romances mirrored back at them. Amegah writes, “in a world where queer and black people are often silenced, hidden, and threatened; the safety of a lovers embrace is often so priceless. However, due to the aforementioned factors, black queer love often thrives in privacy. I wanted to stray from the normalcy of secret car dates and hotel meetings to fully display the warmth and brilliance of our bodies. Sometimes queerness has to have privacy to thrive but I want the work to speak to us, not the people we are often required to hide from. By portraying the body languages of queer love, I hope to widen the scope of what queer freedom can be.”