ARTIST STATEMENT
Growing up black and queer in the Midwest, I have struggled with finding my identity and understanding who I am as an individual without external influences. Throughout my childhood, teenagehood, and young adult life, social media has played a big part in how I think about myself and the “rules” I am expected to follow as a woman. This collage is a response to growing up on the cusp of a technological revolution, and seeing myself as digital fragments that make up who I am and how others see me. As a young woman in the 21st century, social media has become a tool to piece together who you are. Growing older and becoming someone new and unrecognizable is something I often think about. There is something both comforting and isolating about exploring a new identity; you lose something familiar along the way. I am a very sentimental person, and I constantly carry parts of who I used to be into my life now.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Samaya Norman is a Columbus-born, Chicago-based photographer and mixed-media artist focused on black and queer identity. By exploring collage and image-making, her work explores ideas about the expectations of women, people of color, and queer individuals in the 21st century. Samaya’s work reflects her feelings about the fragility one experiences between girlhood and womanhood while being a part of a generation constantly looking for something to connect to. She often takes thoughtful portraits of people and seeks to capture a vulnerability that people hesitate to reveal to the camera, emphasizing the importance of representation and how beautiful it is to be human and not quite know exactly who you are.
© Samaya Norman