(Hidden) Aphrodite | Athena

$6,500.00

“I love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast
I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eye-lids rest.

Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk

Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate
Keep all you have of queenliness
Forgetting that you were once were slave
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!”

-Excerpt from “To A Dark Girl,” A Poem by Gwendolyn B. Bennett.

Original oil painting on canvas. No prints produced. 1 of 1.

48’’ x 36’’ inches

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Joli: A Stranger in a Strange Land

Joli’s work is record. A visual leak from a reality where Matriarchy is the underlying architecture of existence.

These paintings are artifacts — fragments from a parallel world carried into this one. A world where power is feminine, ancient, and self-defining.

JOLI WORKS IN THE VISUAL LANGUAGE HISTORICALLY USED TO CONSTRUCT AUTHORITY: FORMAL PORTRAITURE, IMPERIAL COMPOSITION, THE CLASSICAL GRAMMAR THAT DECLARES PERMANENCE, HIERARCHY, AND CONTROL. She KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT THOSE TOOLS WERE BUILT TO DO and she USES THEM TO SHOW SOMETHING ELSE.

Across cultures, the visual language of power has always been legible: the posture, the framing, the weight of the gaze, the quiet assumption that the viewer is male. What changes here is the foundation beneath it.

IN THE WORLD THESE WORKS COME FROM, THERE IS NO STRUGGLE FOR VISIBILITY. THE CENTER HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MOTHER. POWER DOES NOT NEED TO BE CLAIMED, JUSTIFIED, OR MAINTAINED THROUGH ILLUSION. IT IS INHERENT.

WHAT IS UNSEEN HERE IS NOT HIDDEN THERE. YOU ARE NOT BEING SHOWN WHAT COULD BE. YOU ARE BEING SHOWN WHAT ALREADY IS.