Current Position
Assistant Professor of Art/Printmaking Carnegie Mellon University,

Website
www.ayanah.com

Email
ayanah@andrew.cmu.edu

Statement
My prints, drawings and mixed-media works emerge from an interest in African-American vernacular, a living language ever transforming and re-contextualizing American English and hip hop culture, the brainchild of disenfranchised African-American, Caribbean and Latino youth of 1970?s New York. The layered messages of hip-hop’s visual (graffiti), lyrical (rap), performance (break dancing), and technological (turntablism) expressions narrate the social, political and economic realities of urban American young people. In so doing, it privileges inner city street culture over suburban life, while contradictorily prioritizing escape from these realities by any means necessary. The expression, “keeping it real” advocates cultural authenticity, roots, remembering one’s origins, but the accumulation of wealth represents success and draws suspicion in hip-hop culture. I seek to create works that contribute to, generate and enrich the discourse surrounding visibility, invisibility, code and appropriation. These ideas frame the conceptual basis of my work addressing contemporary black cultural expression.