Credit: Octoroon” 1922. Courtesy of Soho Rep.
ARCHIBALD J. MOTLEY JR.
Octoroons
Motley’s paintings of octoroons stressed these women's visual similarity with whites and their capacity to be “either/or,” through passing, which threatened the definition of race in the United States.
“By questioning the viewer’s ability to discern the difference between blacks and whites, Motley subverts the supposedly absolute standards used to justify racism. Since, individuals with the capacity to decide their racial designation threatened the social structure that privileged whiteness. Their experiences not only informed paintings such as Motley’s, but also inspired numerous works of literature and popular culture that addressed the phenomena of passing.”
As elucidated by scholar Werner Sollors, “passing” refers to the crossing of any line that divides social groups, but most frequently is used to mean “passing for white,” in the sense of “crossing over the color line in the United States from the black to the white side.”
Motley’s labeling of the model as “octoroons,” cements the viewers recognition of her as African American, but leaves it up to the viewer to resolve the relationship between her physical appearance and the applied racial label. "Motley uses the “art approach” to question racial identification and make the audience aware that our notions of racial identity are social constructs rather than absolute biological differences." In his series of “octoroons,” Motley exposed the inadequacy of the stereotypical expectation of race.
