Before configuring the eight pieces that composed the first Misogyny Papers/Apology series, each of the nearly 250 12in x 12in hardboard panels had a collage element and a hand-written quote by a notable woman. Over time, as the project evolved, the finished works became much larger. The smallest piece in the original “Misogyny Papers/Apology: 2019-2020” series is 5ft x 7 ft, and the “Harriet’s Gaze” works are all 4ft x 3ft in size.

With just ten untouched hardboard panels from back when they were first collaged, I decided to update them by using the same experimental painting processes I used to create the previous bodies of work in the Misogyny Papers/Apology series.

Misogyny Papers/Apology (Harriet’s Gaze) - the follow up to the first body of work in the Misogyny Papers/Apology 2019-2020 series continues to draw on the tradition of socially engaged art and brings into relief issues of gender bias, violence and discrimination against women. The paintings in this opus address women’s suffrage, feminism, social injustice and oppression. As an African American man, I needed to summon the resources and formal means to address these issues because I recognized them as the same ones that are symptomatic of a system that oppresses me as well.

Misogyny Papers/Apology (2019–2020) draws on the tradition of socially engaged art and brings into relief issues of gender bias, violence and discrimination against women. The eight separate paintings in this opus are configured from over two hundred, 12in x 12in, hardboard panels supporting an accretion of paint, and newspaper and magazine clippings from the 1950s and early 1960s. 

These works range from references to current events, like Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Jose, to the murder of Faiyaz Narinedatt who resisted sexual assault by a gay man in Guyana. Other references are culturally specific to the Guyana landscape.