Kyrin Hobson’s current series reinvents Dutch artist Albert Ekhout’s 1641 depictions of Tapuya Woman and Mameluca Woman, questioning their lasting effects on the visual language of racism. Hobson interrogates differences between empowered representation, and the voyeurism of the colonizing eye. Her analysis extends to a book of lithographs, now in process, that explores the corporeal tensions of reproducing the paintings.

Regarding Ekhout, 1641 (delicious limbs), 2024

Acrylic and gold leaf on Yupo, with wood and taxidermy chicken feet, 78 x 60”

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Regarding Ekhout, 1641 (Feast), 2024

Acrylic on Yupo, with wood and taxidermy chicken feet, 78 x 60”

Of Skins and Pelts is part of Scenes, an ongoing series of life-scale multi-figure paintings that build worlds around the gestures and sensibilities of the Black female body. The artist constructs cultural memory through compounding or multiplying the figures to visualize generational stories of matrilineal experience.

Of Skins and Pelts, 2023

Oil on linen with wood and taxidermy chicken feet, 86 x 70”