Nikki’s Kitchen, Detroit, Michigan, 2015

Nikki’s Kitchen, Detroit, Michigan simultaneously recalls Western and African portraiture conventions, social documentary photography, and vernacular images, such as family album snapshots. The subject, Nikki, in a leopard-print outfit, assumes a coquettish, cat-like pose familiar from glamour photography and levels her self-confident gaze directly at the camera. Lawson typically meets her portrait subjects during her travels through Brooklyn, Detroit, Haiti, Jamaica, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other so-called “black geographies.” Nikki’s Kitchen, Detroit, Michigan explores the ability of the subject’s body to channel personal and social histories. In it, Lawson lavishes visual attention on the worn wallpaper; the lattice of window security bars; Nikki’s athletic socks, hoop earrings, and makeup; and other details denoting black identity, experience, and aesthetics.