Exhibited Works
Pageant Queen, 2025
custom fabricated pageant sashes
Pageant Queen draws on the legacy of conceptual art and Black pageantry to critique identity politics, colorism, and the commodification of racial representation. Inspired by Lorraine O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgeoise Noire and Lisa Jones’ Combination Skin, the series employs the aesthetics of beauty pageants—specifically sashes—to satirize how identity is celebrated, commodified, and reduced to stereotypes in public spaces. It interrogates visibility, challenging the assumption that representation equals empowerment, while addressing the historical violence, colonialism, and systemic hierarchies tied to mixed-race and Black identities. Through absurdity and confrontation, this exhibition critiques Eurocentric beauty standards and the marginalization of women of color, reimagining the pageant queen as a symbol of resistance, self-determination, and deeper truths about belonging, desirability, and identity.
Tara and Tim, 2019
3 inkjet prints
9x12
This series explores the idea of Black women’s everyday experiences as extraordinary and worthy of documentation, highlighting the significance of routines often overlooked by society. Through moments like getting our nails done, it emphasizes how self-care is not merely indulgent, but an act of resistance against systemic devaluation. By centering these intimate, personal rituals, the work aims to challenge stereotypes, celebrates individuality, and reframes the narrative around Black women’s lives as sites of empowerment, creativity, and self-determination.
Deities, 2019
Iphone photo
11x14
With these photos, I wanted to represent divine status and create imagery that evokes Mother Goddesses and fertility, incorporating colors and symbolism associated with both Oshun and Hera. The images of my children and I, blending staged and candid elements, reflect the temporary nature of time, my offerings to them as their mother and protector, and my own sexuality. The inclusion of peacock feathers and fruit aims to amplify themes of abundance, beauty, and transformation, while positioning motherhood as a sacred and multifaceted role, intertwining nurture, power, and self-expression.
The Promised Land Will Be Green, 2020
Collaboration with Chris Ivey
Video stills (color, sound, 7:10 min)
Capitalism, 2021
screen print
11x17
Cultural Relics (you wasn’t there), 2021
acrylic on canvas
24x30
image by Porter Loves
This work reflects the lived experience of growing up low-income and the shame often associated with relying on public assistance. The Food Stamp Program, now known as SNAP, provides food-purchasing aid for low- and no-income individuals and families, administered by the USDA. Before the current electronic system, assistance was distributed via physical stamp books, which functioned as currency for specific food items. To incorporate these stamps into my work, I had to source them on eBay—a process layered with irony, as I spent money on what is now essentially dead currency.
As an adult, I have never held a job that paid me enough to disqualify me from some form of food assistance. Showing this work publicly allows me to confront and unpack the shame surrounding poverty. Those who suffer most from socioeconomic inequalities are victims of a deeply flawed system, and while these experiences shape my perspective, they do not define me. Public assistance enabled my parents to feed four children, just as it has helped me feed my own. This work is not only a critique of systemic inequality but also a tribute to resilience and survival within its constraints.
Checklist for a Black Artist, 2021
screen print
30x40
image by Porter Loves
A study of language, and the parameters that exist for Black artists' access to opportunities. For this piece, which began as a checklist in my iphone notes, I reference words I used personally for various applications within the past year, as well as language largely associated with academia. Although much of my practice centers on accessibility, and centering Black audiences, I often feel pressured to use what I consider elitist language in order to be taken more seriously as an artist who has not had the privilege of higher education. The idea that Black artists have to adhere to a particular checklist of words and phrases in order to validate their work is rooted in respectability politics and white supremacy. Acknowledgement of this oppressive requirement for artists to use inaccessible language also requires the refusal to uphold it in order to work towards dismantling these systems.
Distance, 2021
digital photo
9x12
Marginalia, 2023
Images via here Gallery
In Marginalia, Coleman presents her first series of text-based work—nine large screen prints of screenshots from the Notes app on her iPhone aptly named, iPhone Notes. The definition of ‘marginalia’ technically refers to the marks (the “notes”) made in the margins of a book or document. Coleman takes the word at face value, but also comments on how women are consistently relegated to the margins. In that context, Coleman sees herself as operating on the periphery, note-taking, yet at the same time, rewriting, correcting, and annotating history in hopes of it being improved by succeeding generations.
Heavily influenced by conceptual French artist, Sophie Calle, who used text-based work and performance in a highly autobiographical practice, Coleman sees her iPhone Notes as a sort of self-archive and exhibiting them as a form of exhibitionism. What started as grocery lists and to-dos evolved into at times funny and at other times emotional quips on Coleman’s identity as an artist. However, the sentiments of each Note are highly relatable—the woes of a transactional artworld, the artworld’s obsession with one-dimensional identity, and so on. Through these iPhone Notes, Coleman uses language to comment on the culture and systems that govern women, especially women of color, in the art world.
Self-Obsession as Process #1-4, 2023
Screen prints
Self-Obsession as Process #1-4 functions as a disclosure of some of my most personal thoughts. This relates to the theme of exploration of self, which is a common thread within my practice. This series in particular focuses on my Google search history, and how personal experiences inform the things I explore, in this case, vanity, ego, and the idea of being wanted. There is a particular intimacy within the work which is both the nature of Google searches in general, combined with the fact that these are specifically screenshots from my phone. As modern life has grown more distanced through the use of devices, opportunities for deep, intimate connections have been significantly reduced. In moments where I am the most vulnerable and starved for human connection, in many ways my phone functions as an intimate partner, a confidante, an object I share my most expressive thoughts with.