Ky Smiley

Ky Smiley is a Columbus, Ohio native artist who explores his own relationship with masculinity, blackness, and queerness through introspection of his family dynamics. He is pursuing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Ohio State University with a minor in African and African American Studies.

This photo series is acting as a personal investigation into my own lived experience of girlhood. I have decided to create this serene and near-perfect depiction of the highlights enjoyed by many Black girls in their childhood. This includes hand games, double dutch, drawing, baby dolls, and the eventual confrontation of no longer being seen in the light of rightful childish innocence. Once this innocence is gone within my admittedly fictitious, yet summarizing, world, a stark reality emerges, a world often leading to the neglect and lack of care exhibited to countless Black girls who grow into women in the same society that refuses to see them.

Ohio

United States of America