Black Art Matters - Kourtney Iman King

Picture Me Sold

Kourtney Iman King’s work explores the tension between embodied experience and performed identity in the lives of Southern Black femmes. Through traditional portrait photography, she examines historical and contemporary images of Black female bodies—particularly in the context of the U.S. South—and reveals how these images have been shaped and controlled by dominant visual narratives.

Understood as an act of reclaiming, these portraits open up spaces beyond stereotypes. They combine vulnerability and self-determination and emphasize dignity, autonomy, and the complexity of Southern Black femme identities—as a claim to self-definition within a visually-driven culture.

© Kourtney Iman King