Dear Skinsmen

Nappy is the head that wears the afro.

I am the Afro, your 1st friend and adversary.

Thick, deviant and ponderous, lucky is the head that wears the crown. I remind you of who you should be.

I am the joy when your skin glistens and basks in the sun. I am the joy you get when walking across the streets of London. Seeing your fellow skinsmen rocking durags on a bicycle, swerving across the hood.

I am the true happiness beyond the comedy and ridicule; I am the satisfaction you get after detangling on a wash day. I am the past, the present and the future.

Aesthetic Intentions & Symbolic Anchors

In this work, the Afro becomes a central figure — metaphor, myth, and monument. It is thick, defiant, deviant, and ponderous. My images are composed to reflect that density and gravitas. The weight of the crown — metaphorical and literal — sits heavily on the heads of my subjects. The framing is deliberate: centre-weighted, still, dignified. These are not passive portraits. They are encounters.

Each subject is depicted with reverence and an almost sculptural stillness, inviting the viewer to slow down and consider the fullness of their presence. Lighting is natural but worshipful, echoing the golden-hour warmth of skin kissed by sun — a subtle nod to the ancestral homeland, to joy, to celebration, to survival.

Joy, Comedy, and the Everyday Divine

There is laughter in this series — not the surface laughter of ridicule, but the rich, internal joy of recognition. A young man on a bike, durag trailing like a flag in the wind; a girl mid-detangle, her eyes closed in exhale; a Black body glistening under sunlight, unapologetically basking. These moments of everyday beauty are not incidental. They are chosen, curated, elevated. They reflect a kind of freedom that is hard-won and often invisible.

The work is not nostalgic, though it honours the past. It is not utopian, though it dreams. These photographs exist in the now — charged with emotion, contradiction, and complexity. The joy in these images is sacred. It is a quiet refusal to let suffering be the only story we tell.

Blackness in Diaspora

From the streets of London to imagined ancestral terrains, Dear Skinsmen maps a diasporic identity that is fluid but rooted. It acknowledges the thrill of seeing one’s reflection in another — across cities, continents, languages. The moment of connection between two Black strangers in a Western city becomes a holy event: "Seeing your fellow skinsmen rocking durags on a bicycle..." These are not just details. They are affirmations.

I want the viewer — particularly the Black viewer — to feel seen. Not studied. Not exoticised. But deeply, wholly seen.

A Mirror and a Monument

In the end, Dear Skinsmen is both mirror and monument. A mirror for those who have carried the weight and beauty of the Afro — a chance to look at themselves not through the eyes of the other, but through the eyes of reverence. A monument to those who came before, whose hair was cut, hidden, or vilified. This is for them too.

As the Afro says: “I am the past, the present and the future.”

This work is about return. About remembrance. About reminding ourselves that beauty is not a trend, but a truth. That hair — our hair — can be history, healing, and hymn.