Art writer Jordana Moore Saggese recently had an article published in ASAP Journal on Sandra Brewster’s iconic Blur series.
“A photograph of a body looms before us. Cut just at the torso we are only able to view the bust of the figure, positioned in a quasi-traditional, three-quarter view. There is no indication of interior space, just a yawning expanse of grayish white surrounding the contrasting Black head, neck, and shoulders. They wear a light-colored shirt with sleeves exposing the upper arm. Where one would expect stasis, this image instead evokes movement as the head moves quickly in front of the camera back-and-forth, back-and-forth, as if (in a Western context, at least) shaking their head no. The centrifugal force created by this gesture of refusal pushes the hair of this figure outward. The individual locks organize into a series of lines, thicker where they attach to the head and thinning as our eye moves along their lengths, almost themselves absorbed into the white ground of the larger composition. Attached to archival paper via a gel-transfer process, Blur reveals the scratches, creases, and tears of its movement from one surface to another. We can detect the material evidence of this transfer and the points at which the image itself (and perhaps even this figure) either resisted or accepted the new surface.”
The complete essay by Jordana can be read here: Blur 18