Jasmine Best
Athens, GA
The Georgia based artist uses her personal memories and manipulations of her memories to create dialogues about the black femme identity in the south.
MessageJasmine Best is a true Southern Artist, gathering narratives from her Carolinian family and childhood. The North Carolina based artist uses her personal memories and manipulations of her memories to create dialogues about the black femme identity in the south and in predominantly white spaces. She received a New Media Design BFA from University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she found her love of working with tangible and traditional mediums combined with digital means of art making. Her work often depicts maternal figures, each depicting the diversity and qualities that make up the black southern women in her life through several generations
Statement
For me memories are the biggest part of our identities. They encompass where we come from, who we know, what we subconsciously find important. They make up who we are but they are malleable and can be manipulated like any medium used in art. I reevaluate my personal memories for moments that have either greatly affected how I interact with others, or remain strong internal cinematic visuals replaying in my mind. Working from my individual past articulates both a better understanding of my own background as a Black Carolinian woman as well as creates a platform where others can find relatable connections from my work in their lives. I take the racial, southern, and domestic upbringing I, and past generations of women in my family have had, and place it in a new context. I am creating a platform for discussion for black femininity in predominantly white spaces as well as creating a vehicle where my audience can make connections of representation, or lack thereof, in their own youth and how that affected them. Medium specificity is the best way for me to materialize memories. Specific fabrics, prints, animation styles, objects, mark making, and compositions can all bring to mind a certain time, place, emotion, or person. I shift between digital and tangible mediums to best articulate my memories because I grew up during the transition from analogue to digital. Using mixed media recalls that era and reflects the malleable nature of remembrances. Working both digitally and traditionally allows me to create an art context for more domestic mediums.