In the Saints series, Marin Burnett reflects on her experience as a Black woman in America. Burnett challenges the distorted and fragmented images of Black women through a societal lens, drawing a parallel to how light refracts around an object as it moves through water. Refracted Saint No. 1 envisions the differences between how Black women view themselves and the ways others see them. The work depicts a Black female body as a “whole saint” adorned with only a halo. Set against a vibrant gilded background, she occupies space with her refracted reflection in water. “As we pass through an intolerant society, our image is distorted, our light and our sainthood refracted – but we are somehow still whole,” Burnett has explained. “Real saints are not gilded, they are pained, flawed, and beautiful people.”  

Image: Marin Burnett, Refracted Saint No. 1, 2019