Women To Know: Calida Rawles

Spelman and New York University graduate Calida Rawles, is an artist who proudly utilizes her work as a form of commentary on the black experience, which is highlighted in her recent work that “employs water as a vital, organic, multifaceted material, and historically charged space.”

Rawles uses water in her artistic expression as a signifier for “both physical and spiritual healing as well as historical trauma and racial exclusion, using duality to envision new space for Black healing, and reimagining her subjects beyond racialized tropes.”

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, and currently residing in Los Angeles, Rawles is inspired by Black women and their place, perception and acceptance in society, which is major fuel for her creations.

Her choice to depict Black women wearing white in an ethereal manner, is a direct contrast to how they are often perceived in modern America. 

“Influenced by contemporary Black female writers and their approaches to intersectionality, Rawles depicts Black women and girls cloaked in white gowns floating in a realm of calmness and spiritual relief from their identity politics and its undercurrent of microaggressions, colorism, and generational trauma.”