Bitta Disappointment | Ink, Charcoal, Graphite and Oil Bar on Polypropylene | 24" x 36" | 2011

Wonder Twins | Ink, Charcoal, Graphite and Oil Bar on Polypropylene | 24" x 36" | 2011

Artist Statement: Demosthene’s artwork examines how black culture is commodified and fetishized. Whether through paintings or drawings, she seeks to magnify the subtlety of racial constructs and how viewers have become comfortable with derogatory images. Her most recent work, The Capture, delves into the subconscious mind of a black heroine and the ephemeral quality of her thoughts and experiences. As she uncovers her special abilities, through a succession of serendipitous events, she comes to understand how these moments of self-realization can be so very temporal. With this new series, she has been intrigued by the black female body as an icon in contemporary imagery and how her physical size is supposed to dictate a certain set of ideals and behavior. The Capture is the initial phase to constructing a non-typical black female heroine persona.

Florine Demosthene earned her BFA from Parsons the New School for Design and her MFA from Hunter College. She has shown extensively through group and solo exhibitions in USA and London. She was a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2011 and she was featured  in the premiere issue of Arc (a magazine dedicated to highlighting emerging and established Caribbean artists). She’s a 2012 Keyholder resident at the Lower East Side Printshop in New York.