Cydne Jasmin Coleby

From a very young age Coleby has felt comfortable disassociating herself from her body, seeing it in its truest form, as it is seen by others. She believes such a perspective ultimately leads to acceptance. Coleby believes that once one completely accepts their physical extension in space, an examination of one’s mentality awaits.

Coleby’s forays into psychoanalytic thinking have led to an interest in the transformative effects of trauma; she studies the relationships that we form with the seismic emotional occurrences of our lifetimes – trying to determine what informs our personality and what defines it. Ultimately her view is a pessimistic one: Coleby doubts our capacity for closure, viewing and capturing every traumatic experience as a blot on the copybook of character.

“Coleby’s practice, first rooted in self portraiture and now extended into depictions of those in her bloodline, has consistently built traction on the idea of self-celebration, ownership, and self love via a re-imaging and reimagining of the self. As a Black Caribbean woman, that re-presentation of her image (and of her feminine family members) holds significant weight. It serves as a radical act in many respects, given the marginalization of Black women and simultaneous demonizing, oppression, and fetishization of Black womanhood throughout colonial histories.”

– Natalie Willis, Associate Curator, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas