Althea Bennett

Althea Bennett received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) from Massachusetts College of Art.

Daughter of Contrast

I live on the dividing line, I lay on a four point intersection of black, white, lower class, and affluent. Food stamps and private schools, section eight housing and Hampton beach vacation homes. I strive to prove my blackness as a privileged light skinned American.

Lithuanian immigrants intent on finding a new life in the land of the free, slaves ancestors traveling from Georgia, South Carolina and making modern moves to the north brings immigrant lineage and forced migrants together.

I was born and raised in the hood of Boston, the urban environments I was raised in have shaped my visual aesthetics, the hood being my life’s backdrop has provided me many inspirations and a particular perspective.

Hood politics, process of gentrification, my own biracial identity and how the “other” race identity is defined by projected categorization. My work is autobiographical,  I cut, rip, glue, tape, fold, and slice paper skins and walls, creating city scrapes and the biracial being.  I am the daughter of a black man and a white woman, my work has had contrast in mind from its inception. I highlight the many class and racial  hierarchies within these social constructions.

I am Daughter of Contrast; a reflection of who I am made from and what I produce.