This print by Margo Humphrey recounts her personal experiences as an African-American artist and woman. A bold and simplified self portrait is overwritten with images, symbols and script which retell a personal narrative. The same narrative is presented in a piece of handwritten text pasted to the portrait. Humphrey began sketches for this portrait in 1986, inspired by images of veiled women and by a National Geographic photograph of a woman with a Sanskrit prayer tattooed across her face.

Humphrey studied printmaking at the California College of Arts and Crafts and received her MFA in printmaking from Stanford University. After her studies, she travelled in Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean and Africa. She taught art in Benin, Nigeria and Uganda. Humphrey’s interest in oral traditions and storytelling is also apparent in this work.