Emily Payne
Blind Spot , 2021
36 x 36
in
book covers, ink
Artist Statement:
BLIND SPOT considers the choice I make each day to see or not to see the ways in which I benefit from living in a culture built on a foundation of White supremacy. Once the willful unseeing turns into active seeing, I see White privilege everywhere I look, a creeping network of threads that reach into every facet of life. It is structural and hard to untangle and it feeds on itself, building strength and thriving off of its mutable forms. I see my own personal map of blind spots, seeded and fueled within institutions whose history is soaked in pain, terror, lives harmed and lives lost. Receiving and then transforming these family heirlooms, I seek out, dig into, reveal and unbury my own legacy so as to pull back the layers that hold others hostage on a daily basis.
