Digital pigment print with enamel and gloss silkscreen glazes on Somerset Velvet 330gsm
55 x 44cm
Edition of 40, signed and numbered
£350
Members price £315

Olivia Sterling’s edition for Goldsmiths CCA relates to her painting of the same name. The painting is the second made in a series. The first depicting a white woman with sun burn alongside a bowl of strawberries. It is unclear whether the lady is deliberately smearing red onto herself to change colour, or if she is simply tanning. For this second image, a similar scene same plays out in reverse, a thick Black woman tans by herself by a pool, minding her business. Next to her is some white ice cream. Food throughout this series – especially white food – is a symbol for the idea of whiteness, and white supremacy. We are unsure if she is protecting her skin from the sun, with sun cream, or symbolically attempting to make herself paler.

For Sterling’s edition for Goldsmith’s CCA, these consistencies are reproduced in the surface of the print, where layers of gloss and white enamel ink replicate the smeared ice cream and suncream, creating oily reflections which wash away in the pool.

“I was getting a uber home from the studio and I was talking to the Somali uber driver. We talked about how awkward British men are and dating preferences before he described how some men in Somalia love dark skinned women – women so dark that their skin shined ‘like a coin’ and I was struck by such a beautiful description. However he began yelling that when you come here, you get brainwashed into thinking that is ugly, and that dark skin is bad. It reminded me of my beautiful Jamaican aunties, so this painting is a bit of a love letter to them. This is why it is called Ode.”

To view a larger image of the edition click here.

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