Artist Statement: Samantha Modder

I work figuratively in pen, collage, and digital media to portray larger-than-life Black, female characters taking up space in real and imagined worlds. In my most recent series, I present a subjective Black woman's fairytale to process interlocking structures of oppression. Like a storybook turned mural, the installations are digitally manipulated ballpoint pen drawings that follow a Black woman in her nightdress and striped socks in a world made up of only her and her duplicates. The work is an allegory for our contemporary condition, confronting questions of power, exploitation, and resistance.

I position this work within the speculative practice of the Black imaginary—a centering of Black dreams and fantasies to create alternate spaces of both comfort and confrontation. The spaces I create are less utopia and more speculative test lab, a way to decenter broken realities and focus instead on the imaginary to help understand and rethink oppressive structures. Black hair in particular serves as a powerful protagonist in my work pushing the narrative forward in soft curls and defiant shapes.

As my work towers above you, I hope you will step back into a space of childhood, wonder, and possibility. That you would, in the best of ways, feel small and open, ready and willing to hear one more story.