Ashley Ja’nae is a visual artist born and raised in Washington, D.C. She has exhibited her work in the New York City, the DC area, and Europe. She uses pen and ink to draw portraits that explore the humanity and experiences of Black American women. Her work focuses on visual texture, rhythm, contrast, space, and the idea of what one can create with limitations. Her work functions as visual safe spaces while it explores self-acceptance, intersectionality, and the deconstruction of beauty standards.
Through the use of repetitive lines and intricate mark making, Ashley ponders the interaction of blackness and whiteness. Although race is a social construct, it affects how we socialize with one another. The repeated black lines against the stark and empty backgrounds represent how jarring it can be to move in predominantly white space. How does blackness stand on its own in contrast to whiteness? Blackness is not in opposition with whiteness but it’s crucial for Black women to create room and acceptance for themselves within and outside of their bodies. Themes covered in her artwork are influenced by bell hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Woman in America, and other Black Feminist texts.