The colour of my skin: a poem that accompanies EyeofYinga’s photographic body of work
EyeofYinga is a South African photographer whose work narrates the stories of Black womanhood, the mundane of Blackness and Black culture and our personal experiences with society. View her work here: https://twitter.com/EyeofYinga?s=20
You Are Beauty To Me by EyeofYinga
EyeofYinga’s photographic body of work is a portrayal of the beauty that dances on the surfaces of brown skin. In addition, it is accompanied by the poetry heard in the vocals of Brown Skin Girl.
READ OUR PIECE ON A BROWN PUFFER JACKET FROM TSHEPISO MAEBELA’S HANDS HERE: http://sacreativenetwork.co.za/2021/04/a-brown-puffer-jacket-from-tshepisos-hands/
The work titled You Are Beauty To Me is an exploration of the beauty of brown skin and the perceptions of it. The title on its own is a lens. It shows us that the person behind the lens perceives brown skin as an emblem of beauty. In addition, the words scripted in the photographs are an extension of this lens. The photographer pens the tale of brown skin as what she sees it for.
An accompaniment to You Are Beauty To Me
We see brown skin as beautiful too. Therefore, we think that this photographic body of work serves as a reflection of our own lenses through which we see and define beauty. We are writers and think that all forms of art intertwine. As such, in the narration of the colour of our skin we have written a poem that accompanies You Are Beauty To Me. We chose to write a poem instead of describing the images.
The Colour of My Skin
the colour of my skin traveled four and a half billion years
before it found a resting place in me,
on me.
Muse: Thusile
from Eve, this hue comes,
to the dust her body rests in
it shall return.
our mother, a woman whose sculpture comes from
the emptying of a father’s rib (cage)
danced in gardens,
with her body performing for what sings in the sky,
while her skin brushed leaves
with strokes of brown
from palettes of melanin
used in creating her.
Muse: Thusile
i like to think that on the first day,
in the beginning when God created everything,
the light he called upon to illuminate the Earth was for this tint.
this tint looks like the sun put her hands on it
like a woman who puts her hands over you when she prays-
(this skin of mine is sun-kissed because
the sun has always loved my hue.)
Muse: Thusile
this is the colour of my skin,
when you see it, you see the hands of The Creator,
you see the light.
