Debra Cartwright

Debra Cartwright recently graduated with her MFA from Rutgers University. She holds art and design degrees from the University of Virginia and Parsons School of Design. Her artwork has been shown in New York, Sweden and Berlin. She currently practices in Brooklyn, NY.

Debra Cartwright examines the relationship between the black female body and American medical history. Artist’s artwork blends the history of Western gynecology with the representation of Black womanhood. Cartwright's use of a muted color palette and abstraction initially seduces viewers, but as they look closer, they can see blood, flesh, and possibly organs. Her watercolors and mixed medium artworks address the painful history of using enslaved women as surgical test subjects in early gynecological medicine. Through her work, Cartwright honors the unnamed or later named enslaved women of James Marion Sims' medical studies. Her paintings function as a palimpsest of history, building upon the metaphor and practice of uncovering a history while adding more to it. She challenges the way bodies are viewed and hopes to alter her audience's perception of Black womanhood.