Worldwide Style and Elegance Founder Rihanna and Renowned Artist Lorna Simpson Collaborate for ESSENCE’s January+February 2021 Challenge Artistic Protect in Amazing Photographic Collage

NEW YORK–(Enterprise WIRE)–ESSENCE, the foremost media, technology and commerce enterprise serving Black females, kicks off 2021 with a stunning January + February go over artwork exceptional. Famous artist Lorna Simpson collaborates with world wide fashion and splendor founder Robyn Rihanna Fenty (who just lately introduced Fenty Skin globally in suppliers in the U.S. and the U.K.) to reinterpret the narrative of modern-day natural beauty in the magnificent photographic cover collage, Of Earth & Sky, and in pictures comprising a 12-site portfolio attribute inside the January + February problem. In excess of the past 15 years of her acclaimed three-10 years profession, Simpson has designed collages that recontextualize illustrations or photos of Black women from vintage pages of Ebony and Jet magazines. Like all of Simpson’s celebrated will work, these unique items are extra than what fulfills the eye. [Click here for images.]

Simpson channels Rihanna as her muse during the breathtaking inventive rendering—reimagining the artist in a way that has under no circumstances been witnessed ahead of. Rihanna seems ethereal in designer items which includes from her signature Savage X Fenty line as effectively as Prada, Givenchy, Hood by Air, Thelma West, Rick Owens and extra. Simpson states: “…I necessary to build images of Rihanna to position within just the environments of source supplies from my archive. For the job to have the very same kind of spectacular visual intensity as my collage perform to date, I had to think about the atmosphere and lighting of certain supply components in advance of arriving to set. Realizing Rihanna’s charisma and commanding presence, my hard work was then to be as present and prepared as feasible to capture her exquisite effectiveness for the digicam…”

The package deal also attributes the piece, Anthems of Possibility, penned by Simpson’s daughter, writer and actor Zora Simpson Casebere. She weighs in on how Rihanna assisted form her womanhood at an early age and how serving as a stand-in model on set for her mom was a complete-circle minute. She muses: “…At 13, I was deeply grateful that at a formative time in my life, it was Rihanna’s voice and art that became my portals to so quite a few thoughts about sexuality, sexual exploration and sexual autonomy. Now, on set, I assisted my mom as a product as she explored how she could later position Rihanna inside of the visible contexts she’d chosen from classic Ebony magazines, aged Connected Push photographs and 19th-century lithographs of mineral specimens. When Rihanna arrived at the set—my initial time looking at her in true life—I was mesmerized. She was the really definition of grace, charisma and impact. Carrying a magnificent Maximilian black headdress, she asked for the music ‘Thick’ by DJ Chose, then achieved the digicam with energy and possibility—power in how she moved her system by way of room, and risk in how she dismantled and moved past institutional boundaries…”

The magnificent situation will also pay homage to Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris’ historic get with reflections by five influential Black gals: Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, Karen Finney, Star Jones and Minyon Moore. In addition, the difficulty options an job interview with Barack Obama speaking about his new e-book and journey as the nation’s to start with Black president. In addition, legendary actress Cicely Tyson shares an eye-opening excerpt from her new memoir.

For far more on this situation, pay a visit to ESSENCE.com or pick up the January + February 2021 situation on newsstands next week. (Photographic Collages, Lorna Simpson)

ABOUT ESSENCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.

Essence Communications is the quantity a single media, technologies and commerce enterprise focused to Black women and conjures up a global viewers of a lot more than 31 million by means of numerous storytelling and immersive first information. With a multi-system existence in publishing, experiential and online, ESSENCE encompasses its signature magazine electronic, video and social platforms tv specials textbooks as nicely as stay gatherings, which include Black Females in Music, Black Girls in Hollywood, Road Style and the ESSENCE Competition. Essence Communications is owned by Essence Ventures, an impartial Black-owned, consumer technologies company merging content, local community and commerce to meet up with the evolving cultural and way of living needs of people today of shade.