Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) became known for his life-size portraits of stylish Black men and women, often set against stark white backgrounds. Beginning in the late 1960s and ’70s, his choice to place everyday people—friends, acquaintances, even strangers—on clean, empty grounds was radical. The stark white stripped away distractions and forced complete attention onto the sitter’s gaze, their fashion, their presence. In doing so, Hendricks transformed his subjects into icons of individuality and pride, challenging art history’s exclusions and redefining who deserved to be monumentalized.

It was his portrait What’s Going On that first caught my attention. I loved the sharp contrast, the way clothing became negative space, and how skin itself filled the shapes of the painting. That interplay of presence and absence inspired me to create a photographic series in direct conversation with his work. I carried forward his visual language of posing but shifted the narrative of gender. Where Hendricks showed a single nude woman surrounded by men in suits, I reversed the roles—placing the male figure nude at the center. In doing so, I wanted to subvert tradition, turning the lens onto the male body and framing it through a female perspective, a position rarely granted in art or photography.

At the same time, I reimagined the female figures in oversized clothing, stripping away the conventional markers of body shape and instead emphasizing form, silhouette, and negative space. Fashion, so central to Hendricks’ practice, became my own point of innovation. My stylist, Angel, brought a contemporary edge to the clothing, even designing original hats by hand, an element that anchors the series firmly in the present while honoring the 1970s spirit I love in Hendricks’ work. The result is both homage and reinvention: a celebration of style, power, and visibility, reframed for a new era.