Description
*For an available payment plan please email vernique@mfranciscreative.com*
It’s been a long time coming, but we have a pre-publication availability for the first varied edition lithographic prints of Smiling With All Your Teeth. The total available print edition is 12, but there are only 6 available right now. This print is a lithograph on Rives BFK it is 14” x 22” with collage elements of felt, card stock, glitter, beads, and liquid gold leaf. Frame not included.
When I created the original piece it was the beginning of an exploration of softness as it pertains to black men. The big smile on Rico was flanked by lace and roses suggesting a vulnerability that’s no offer assigned to black men. While I still love that original piece for those actual reasons these prints became something else.
These 12 lithographs were always meant to be varied because I would be working back into them by hand, but as I worked on them something happened. They were imperfect and a lot less mechanical in the exact reproduction of their appearance and it made me think about seeing the person beyond the mess—the person beyond the cues of stereotypes, biases, and projections. The imperfections in the prints became part of the way I see black men, we see ourselves and how others see us as well, flawed but beautiful, but still worth time and effort. If one can see past these things that are not perfect you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the brother smiling with all his teeth.
