Laylah Ali’s meticulous, exactingly executed drawings take months to complete. Her works investigate a variety of psychological and socio-cultural dramas, including race, conflict and violence. Interestingly, Ali seems to almost be drawn to the formalist implications of race and “color,” in a decidedly art historical sense of the word. Ali notes, “I’m fascinated, how a different facial color directs you. Green absorbs you into it. Pink or red comes out at you. Light pink doesn’t recede into the page but has a flatness. Bright pink jumps out. Those phenomena affect your reading of the figure- nothing related to anything but what a color does, how it affects your eyeball.”

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