Inga Kimberly Brown’s oil painting entitled: The Belle of a Southern Mix, imediately drew my attention. The first thing I noticed about the painting was the pictures that hung around her neck. I immediately thought the painting was trying to convey something about the girl’s ancestry. After reading the description provided by the artist, I realized that Brown was struggling with an identity crisis due to her mixed heritage. The description went on to say that Brown had Native American, English, Scotch, and African American roots. The painting portrays those pieces of Brown’s history by having the girl in the picture wear an English dress, have on a Native American headband, and look primarily Native American in the face.
The pictures themselves that hang around her neck show that Brown feels as though her ancestry is a part of her whether she likes it or not. Behind the girl’s head there are even more family pictures. Even though the girl is the center of the painting, it is hard to miss all of the family history that is sprinkled around the painting. The subject’s facial expression and the fact that the pictures are hung around her neck by a chain shows that the mixed heritage is more of a burden to Brown. Although sometimes family history is discussed positively by people, in Inga Brown’s case, it seems to be the opposite. Until recently, race was a defining trait that indicated how you were to be treated. I believe that having a racial identity crisis would cause Brown to question her self worth.
My initial impressions of the painting were not wrong, but I did not dig deep enough. The placement of the portraits, the clothing choices, and the facial expression all allude to Inga Brown’s struggle to find her identity.
