The Ones with the Pretty Legs

Pretty Legs

Cropping everything outside of the frame except for legs and skin tone. Femme’s of color are often reduce to and referred by a feminine feature and their skintone. ie. the lightskin with the legs or the dark one with the butt.

 I sought out to create a portrait where all information was left outside of the frame except for skin tone and a traditionally feminine and sexualized body part (shapely legs). Using only colorism and the sexualization of the feminine form proves to be an inefficient way to go about portraiture. It leaves the audience unable to gleam anything about the owners of the legs. We know nothing of them as individuals or their relationship to each other if there is one at all. But also left to wonder if we want to know anything about them or are we content to view them as is? 

The Title refers to a children’s rhyme where certain attributes are distributed and assigned. Muscles to boys, brains to teachers, and “pretty legs” to the girls.