damali ayo
damali ayo refers to herself as, “an honest manipulator.” Her installation of a “flesh toned” living room space intoned physical appearances of blanket racial labeling and married it to the omnipresent furnishing of routine domestic space, all within a rough warehouse for surrealistic resonance. Certainly, the one thing all humans never leave home without is their skin. For the opening, ayo inhabited the space wearing a white top and black pants highlighting the very rough distinctions that are often made when indeed all of the furnishings have slightly different skin tones. This “pay much closer attention” message is both a comment on painting and human relations. For ayo the devil is in the details.
This piece also recalls George Segal, Jessica Stockholder, Ed Kienholz, and Jean Michel Basquiat.
