Painting 3 – Surveillance and Vulnerability

This painting depicts a young boy seated in a classroom, his face painted with realism in acrylic to capture a mixture of discomfort and resistance. Above him, oversized hands hover as if to correct, control, or impose authority. Resting on his head is a Black comb placed directly into real hair, embedded into the work.

The presence of real hair transforms the painting into a tactile and embodied encounter. It evokes the lived experiences of Black children whose hair is subjected to scrutiny, touch, and correction in school environments. The comb pressing onto real hair makes visible how assimilation and surveillance operate not just symbolically but physically, enacted on the body itself.

Behind the figure, the background outlines a classroom, drawn in linear perspective but left skeletal and incomplete. This situates the boy within the institutional framework of education, yet the fragility of the outline highlights instability: the system appears authoritative but produces insecurity for those subjected to it.

By combining painted realism with the materiality of real hair, the painting amplifies the tension between selfhood and external control. It embodies Ahmed’s (2004) idea of “affective economies,” showing how feelings of discomfort and otherness circulate through institutions and attach themselves to specific bodies.

Outcome: This painting externalises the anxiety of cultural adaptation in schools. The comb and real hair demonstrate the intimate, bodily dimension of enforced conformity, while the skeletal classroom background makes clear that vulnerability is both personal and systemic.