Thomias Radin Ti Mal’, 2024

Ti mal’ is an oil painting on linen in artist’s wood frame.

This painting is a unique work within a series that depicts the heads of Black subjects from various angles with a focus on natural hair styles. All the works from this series share a similar partly cloudy blue-sky background. In each of the works, the figure’s face is rendered abstractly to lend an air of anonymity or universality. In contrast, the braids of the figures are rendered in loving detail and reference roots or pathways—the personal and intergenerational history of the figure thus on display.

The painting Ti mal’ depicts a figure from a bird’s eye view making the twisting cornrows on the top of her head visible yet obscuring the figure’s facial features.