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A portrait montage highlighting Black Women of dark hues by Boxx The Artist
The Women in Between is an interdisciplinary portrait series and short documentary by Boxx The Artist that honors the lives, becoming, and everyday contributions of local grassroots trailblazers. Created between 2022 and 2023, the project centered the experiences of dark-skinned Black women who's impact on their communities is often overlooked despite their roles as leaders, caregivers, creators, advocates, and change-makers.
Through portraiture, personal storytelling, and film, the project explored the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and colorism while examining the historical biases of photography, printmaking, and imaging technologies that have inadequately represented darker skin tones. Inspired in part by the legacy of the Shirley Cards used to calibrate photographic color processes, the work challenged longstanding systems of exclusion and questioned who is seen, valued, and remembered.
The resulting collection featured portraits and narratives of influential women whose contributions have often existed in the margins despite their profound impact on the communities they serve. Presented through a public exhibition, interactive installation, and accompanying short film, at Gallery 924, it invited audiences to reflect on the wisdom, resilience, and humanity found in everyday lives.
At its core, the project affirmed that every act of care, leadership, creativity, and survival matters. It is often the women in between, the ones rarely centered, documented, or celebrated, who become the fabric that holds communities together. By recognizing their stories, the project encouraged viewers to deepen their understanding of community, connection, and collective history.
Originally conceived as a portrait and oral history project, The Women in Between also served as the foundation for a larger documentary concept. The short film functions as a proof of concept and archival record, with future plans to expand the work into a feature-length documentary exploring colorism, visibility, identity, and the lived experiences of Black women across generations and communities.
Pictured Contributors: Desarae Leshore, Plum Virtue, Marcya Hill-Brown, Faith Payne, Photo by : Boxx The Artist
The Inspiration
The Inspiration
The project emerged from a desire to challenge systems of visibility and representation. As a dark-skinned Black woman, this work is personal. The stories shared throughout this study mirrors many of my own experiences. Growing up, being dark-skinned wasn't always celebrated, and it wasn't the "cool" thing to be as a little Black girl. Like many of the women in this project, I experienced with challenges that I only know reflect on, and often didn't recognize how much the images I saw of myself shaped the way I viewed my own beauty and worth. It wasn't until later that I began to understand the psychological impact of not seeing yourself reflected accurately.
The Women in Between explored the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and colorism while examining the historical biases of photography, printmaking, and imaging technologies that have inadequately represented darker skin tones. Though I had very indepth conversation with many woman, I was able to share it all here. I had to start at the beginning, inspired in part by the legacy of the Shirley Cards used to calibrate photographic color processes, the work questioned who is seen, valued, and remembered, while creating space for narratives that have too often existed on the margins.
There is a much larger conversation to be had around visibility, racial biases, and ultimately colorism, that is a byproduct of systems of oppression. This project simply begins that conversation, so I'll start here.
Photo Prints
Photo Credit: Isaiah Rice
Mission of the Project
Mission of the Project
A Different Lens
A Different Lens
Centering the stories of contemporary women, The Women in Between examines the visual systems that have shaped how Black people have been documented throughout history. Beyond individual experiences, it asks a broader question: What happens when the tools used to capture and preserve history are not designed with everyone in mind?
This inquiry led to an exploration of portraiture through paintings, photography, color film technology, and printmaking practices that influenced the production of portraits for much of the twentieth century. As visual culture evolved, so too did the standards used to define accuracy, beauty, and representation. Yet many of these standards were developed around a limited range of skin tones, creating technical barriers that affected how darker complexions appeared in photographs and printed images.
By tracing these histories, The Women in Between places contemporary portraiture in conversation with the technologies that preceded it, inviting viewers to consider how design decisions, industry practices, and cultural assumptions continue to influence the images we create today.
History and Background
History and Background
For years, the consideration of Black people and the range of colors we are, were excluded from the printmaking process. We may be familiar the black-and-white era of photos that emerged in 1800s. This is much more than a modern day filter, but was the only method widely used to print photos. During this era, photos of darker complexions were either over or underexposed for over a century.
Nevertheless, photography including photo portraits were groundbreaking for Black Americans, and became a powerful tool of expression, personifying and dignifying the Black experience. Prior to the invention and access of photography, paintings or drawn portraits were the only way to record the appearance of someone. This widely led to the popularity of the visual artist to capture legacy, family, and community.
Outside of artistic creation, the methods of portraiture were luxury for the wealthy and affluenced, historical documentation, and even hobby. With this system, the essence of Black people were grossly reduced on a mainstream level and often captured as mockery and caricatures misrepresenting their true appearance and features. Thus, the importance of photography was to offer a more true narrative and humanize the Black experience.
Black Dignity Through Portraiture
Photo Credit: Kwame Brathwaite
Reclaiming the Image
Reclaiming the Image
Long before conversations about representation became mainstream, Black photographers were creating images that affirmed the beauty, dignity, and complexity of Black life on their own terms. Their work challenged visual narratives that often excluded, distorted, or diminished Black experiences and offered alternative ways of seeing.
Photographer Kwame Brathwaite became a pivotal figure in the "Black Is Beautiful" movement during the 1960s. Through his photographs of the Grandassa Models, a collective of women who embraced natural hairstyles, darker skin tones, and African-inspired fashion, Brathwaite created powerful images that celebrated Black identity at a time when Eurocentric beauty standards dominated popular culture. His portraits helped redefine beauty by placing Black women at the center of the frame with confidence, style, and agency.
Similarly, Brathwaites predecessor, Isaiah Rice captured photographic archives that offers a glimpse into everyday Black life in the American South during the 1950s. His photographs captured moments of elegance, community, joy, and self-expression that are often absent from mainstream historical narratives. Rather than documenting Black life solely through struggle, Rice's images reveal a fuller picture, marked by glamour, celebration, and humanity.
These visual histories provide an important foundation for The Women in Between. They remind us that representation is not only about who is visible, but who controls the image, the narrative, and the archive. By drawing inspiration from photographers who documented Black life with care and intention, the project continues a tradition of image-making that centers Black people as authors of their own stories.
Systematic Racial Bias
Photo Credit: Eastman Kodak Company
The Shirley Cards
The Shirley Cards
Portrait paintings and photo photography has had a cyclical relationship. Photography symplified the process of capturing portraits, although color would be introduced much later. Global leader in print technology, Kodak, set an industry standard with the introduction of "Shirley Cards." The Shirly Card was a reference photo for technicians to balance hues for photo processing. Shirley was an employee of Kodak who posed as a model to create the cards that calibrated the printers in photo labs. Before any image was printed, they used these cards as a reference to make sure that photos were balanced correctly against the color swatches code for her skin tone.
IMPACT: WHAT DID SHIRLEY CARDS DO?
IMPACT: WHAT DID SHIRLEY CARDS DO?
This process became the standard, and replicated across the industry. The models were white, so photos were exclusively being calibrated for white skin. This lacked range for dark skin, resulting in poorly printed photos. Racial bias was systematically embedded through the color calibration process for printing with the use of "Shirley Cards" developed by Kodak. Black people, especially with dark skin, simply did not matter in this process. It wasn't the case of not having technology to exist that prevented a more equitable system, but it just was not inclusive.
Cameras became more accessible to Black people, unlike more dated times, portrait paintings were a luxury exclusive that were often used to help document history and linage. The convenience of photography soon merged with commercialism booming, allowing folks across all socioeconomic classes to consume. For decades, photos of dark-skinned people were underexposed, blotched, and blacked out, ultimately failing to capture the history that photos tell along with it appropriately.
Canvas printing is a more modern practice derived from the photography printing system that also carried over these systematic flaws since the the color callibration in printmaking followed the same rubric. As the digital era emerged and evolved Kodaks practice inadvertedly became the model. We see how this bias shaped the complete infastructure. It wasn't until the late 1990s Kodak introduced multiracial Shirley Cards after decades of complaints. In 1996 they launched the multiracial cards featuring an Asian, Latino, and Black woman.
Photo Credit: Marion Post Wolcott
The ultimate tragedy that takes the cake is that Kodak gained two major clients, a chocolate company and furniture company. These clients complained that the browns in their photos were misrepresenting their products. The years of brown and black people being inadequately captured was not their area of concern, and it took chocolate and furniture to make an adjust over actual human beings being effected.
Technology has rapidly advanced, and we now have advanced color capturing and printing options, however even to this day, printing dark-skinned hues still comes with it challenges. All printers are not created equally. There still is a lack of details that requires extra care, because the original design was not for dark skin hues. This is true for prints of all form.
Visual artistry has evolved well into the digital era, and through digital art, artists can now capture portraitures, draw, and even paint them digitially, transfering images to canvas to integrate and offer the quality and aesthetic of a traditional painting.
Black Portraiture
Black Portraiture
Contributor: Plum Virtue
The Portrait Series
The Portrait Series
The portrait collection highlighted everyday influential women whose contributions have shaped their communities through leadership, service, creativity, advocacy, and care. Each work sought to capture not only the likeness of its subject, but also the complexity, resilience, and humanity that often goes undocumented.
The photographic process itself became an extension of the project's larger inquiry. Throughout my career, I've been told that dark-skinned people should not be photographed against black backdrops because they would disappear into the background. I wanted to challenge that assumption. Using a black backdrop, a single light source, and a Canon R6 camera known for its ability to perform in low-light conditions, I intentionally stripped away distractions to focus on what had so often been overlooked: the richness, depth, and range of darker complexions.
The goal was never to over-light, over-edit, or manipulate the images. Instead, I wanted the women to exist fully within the frame as they were. The subtle undertones, highlights, and textures within their skin became just as important as their expressions. What emerged were portraits that demonstrated that dark skin does not need to be corrected, compensated for, or separated from darkness in order to be seen.
The Process
The Process
During the unreleased interviews, many of the women reflected on their own experiences with photography. Several shared that as children or young adults they disliked being photographed because they rarely recognized themselves in the images. They remembered photographs where their faces were overexposed, washed out, or rendered so dark that their features disappeared altogether. These women grew up during the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
These experiences were often dismissed as technical limitations, yet they reflected a much larger history of imaging technologies that were not designed with darker skin tones in mind. My argue is the technology existed, the people it impact just were not considered. With this collection, pairing portraiture with personal narrative, the series became both a celebration and a corrective. Giving the women the pictures they should have been afforded many years ago.
The women were not asked to perform or transform themselves for the camera. Instead, they were invited to take up space, be seen clearly, and exist within a visual archive that acknowledges their beauty, presence, and humanity on their own terms. These photos have very little editing, one light, and a black backdrop to show what can be captured when you're truly seen.
Exhibition & Installation
Exhibition & Installation
The project was presented through a public exhibition and interactive installation that invited audiences to engage with both the artwork and the stories behind it. Combining portraiture, film, and personal narrative, the exhibition created opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and community connection. Visitors were encouraged to consider how representation shapes collective memory and to recognize the value of everyday people whose contributions often go unseen. The exhibit has thus been featured in several solo shows & exhibitons across Indiana.
Select Featured Exhibits
Select Featured Exhibits
Speck Gallery, Harrison Center, Indianapolis,IN, 2025
Christel DeHaan ArtSpace Gallery, The Athenaeum, Indianapolis,IN, 2024
Michael O’Brien Gallery, Phoenix Theatre, Indianapolis,IN, 2024
Wabash National Gallery, The Arts Federation, Lafayette, IN, 2024
Madam CJ Walker Legacy Center, Indianapolis, IN, 2024
DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award Exhibition, Gallery 924, Indianapolis, IN, 2023
The Film
The Film
Accompanying the portrait series, The Women in Between short documentary wove together personal reflections and lived experiences from participating contributors. The film served as both a companion to the visual artwork and an archival record of stories that deserve preservation.
Through intimate conversations and portraiture, the film affirmed that every act of care, leadership, creativity, and survival matters. It is often the women in between, the ones rarely centered, documented, or celebrated, who become the fabric that holds communities together.
Director/Producer/Videographer/Editor: Boxx The Artist
Contributors: Lanette Washington, Mel Johnson, Faith Payne, Marcya Hill-Brown, Domonique Moon, Desarae LeShore, Jennifer Darby, Aleeya, Daja Ray & Lawanda, Donisha Reed, Plum Virtue, Rav'n & Mary Ann.
Photography Assistant: Shannell Parks
Make-up Artist: Tanisha Miata
Soundtrack: Mel-lo Productions
Photography Studio: Through Her Lens Studio
Year: 2022-2023
Legacy & Future Documentary
Legacy & Future Documentary
Originally conceived as a portrait and oral history project, The Women in Between evolved to serve as the foundation for a larger documentary initiative. The short film functions as a proof of concept and archival record, with future plans to expand the work into a feature length documentary really creating space to share the deeper conversations discussed the interviews. We explored the concept colorism amongst the our community, visibility, identity, and the lived experiences of Black women across generations and communities.
As the project continues to exist, its mission remains the same: to honor the women whose stories have shaped us, challenge narratives of exclusion, and create a lasting record of lives that deserve to be seen, heard, and remembered. Although, there is no current timeline for it's expansion, it has been such an honor to witness it take it's form.
To exhibit this project in your gallery please inquire with Boxx The Artist.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation & Power Plant Grant for funding this project, the Indianapolis Arts Council, and Contributors: Lanette Washington, Mel Johnson, Faith Payne, Marcya Hill-Brown, Domonique Moon, Desarae LeShore, Jennifer Darby, Aleeya, Daja Ray & Lawanda, Donisha Reed, Plum Virtue, Rav'n & Mary Ann, and all those invloved, and the community that received my work.
Boxx The Artist is searching for stories, photos, and interviews of dark-skinned Black women to create a new series of portraits. These woman should have impactful stories and life experiences making meaningful contributions to their families, homes, and or the communities they serve(d).
All perspectives major and minor will be considered. Women do not have to be recognized or well-knowned. Examples include, but are not limited to: Women raising their families, holistic practicioners or doulas, single mothers, career-driven women who have broken glass ceilings, grandmothers who have been the rock of the family, first-generation college students, etc. Ages 21+ will be considered. Women who are comfortable sharing their experience and perspective as a dark-skinned Black woman are perferred. Intersections of class, demographic, socioeconomic status, and women on the LGBTQ+ spectrum to be considered. You may submit on behalf of friend, family member, or someone you'd like to acknowledge with their consent or consent of the family if the person is no longer living. Also accepting interviews if you'd like to discuss colorism and your experiences or the print/photography industry.
Eligibility: (submissions closed)
Age: 21+
Identify as a Black women (dark complexion)
Must have an inspirational story as to how they have made an impact
Be open and consent to a recorded interview (not required)
Must be willing to submit photos for a portrait creation or willing to pose for photography portraits
Women subjects can be living or deceased.
Each participant will be provided with a framed copy of the portrait.
If you are willing to be interviewed, open to all perspectives on the conversation of colorism, the print/photo industry, systematic racism.
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