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Cocoa Buttercup

Chocolate and ABS Plastic

This intimate and affectionate piece is a celebration of the culture of kinship and sisterhood between black women. Specifically, it speaks to the intergenerational and familial connections between mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and so on. For me (and innumerable other black women no doubt) the smell of cocoa butter insights a very particular sense of warmth and nostalgia. From my childhood, I quite vividly remember a small white tub of Palmers cocoa butter that used to sit atop my grandmother’s chest of drawers, and the sweet aroma its contents would emit when melting on the surface of my skin. Being born with eczema, my mother and grandmother would apply thick, heavy ointments such as this to soothe and nourish my skin when I was very young. There was something incredibly endearing and intimate about this exchange. It was a relatively small and mundane act which, at the time, I did not think much of. At present, I look back these exchanges with an overwhelming sense of happiness. That feeling of being nurtured and cared for and loved unconditionally by the female figures in my life is something that I wanted to capture within this sculpture. Cocoa Buttercup embodies the way in which black women may thrive and flourish when surrounded by other black women who work to elevate, uplift, and nurture them – as my relatives have done for me.

This piece is dedicated to my mother, grandmother, and Auntie Patricia. Thank you for continuing to guide and nurture me throughout my life, even in my most trying and stubborn moments.