Scenes from the Middle Class

Dana Robinson

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The static lives loosely outlined by products such as Maybelline, Cheerios and Welches are shown as the ideal middle class life that one should aspire to. As time has passed Black people have been invited into the comforting fold of middle class life, and the ways of achieving this life have remained a hoop that is difficult to jump through. Ebony magazine, with its beautiful black families sitting for dinner and the smiling faces of children hovering over spoons of Campbell's soups, promises a new life, but like a mirage, as this life gets closer it has the potential to become a hallucination and recede just out of reach.

Scenes from the Middle Class takes these visions of domestic paradise found in the advertisements of Ebony magazine and allows for new interpretations and new desires for our future by removing their ability to sell, dissect, and reproduce. Life may never be perfect but it can be ours.

Shown in 2021 solo show at Specialist Gallery in Seattle, Washington, 2021

Scenes from the Middle Class #, 2019, Collage and acrylic in transparent folder, 7 x 10 inches

19-SOLD