Women hold the centre while Angie makes her own rules for the men

Why does Angie paint men as fried eggs?

Angie held up part of a three-piece painting. The egg was her representation of a man. I asked her why.

This is how I represent men. Um, my references are mostly from vintage porno magazines because they are a little bit more stylish and a little bit more risky with the poses that I like to, to imitate, to my to do my work.

Yeah, I really like fried eggs. They are. Look, they are so beautiful for me.

Why does the woman stay at the centre?

Like the only way I could think about it in a way that looks pleasant for me was making it like icons and like putting the center of my pieces with a woman. That is something that I really like how it looks, but I'm not saying that I use them as an accessory, but I do, you know, like, I really like to put eggs and animals on my pieces. So that's the main participation that I really want to push as a decoration, not the main thing on my work. I hope that makes sense.

What does Angie say about the men she loves?

Angie kept her aesthetic choice separate from the people in her life.

I mean, I'm straight and I love my husband and he's beautiful, but Even I understand that the only men that I could find beautiful are the ones that are kind of feminine. It's not that I don't see them beautiful, but I think that the Dominican male that I am, I have more close to maybe is so aggressive and like, you know, like that. I just wanted to represent it as a symbol because I really enjoy male company. I just don't like how it's made.

Which women shape Angie’s paintings?

Angie described the countryside and the women in her family.

I use myself more as a guide to show about this ideal of the countryside that I always try to work with. Because my family is from the countryside. They are all single mothers, and they are the most beautiful people in the world. For me and how I define femininity, which is the most important thing for me because I really like how beauty is perceived on women when we actually want to define it. And I don't know, like, I really like girls on the countryside and on my work.

Who does Angie want to see themselves in her work?

I don't I just want people that look like me to see things that look like them. As I saw when I first saw those two painters that I showed you. I just want to be a continuation of that. Like, I just want for people to keep looking at a painting of a Dominican girl from the countryside that looks cute as those two painters. And it sounds simple, but knowing their work has done so much for me, that for me is impossible. That my work doesn't do the same kind of push for other people.

Why do the pictures women see around them matter?

many people always tell me such long sentences about how they feel about my work, and they're all black girls that look like me.

Her conversation about self-portraits and original artwork follows this question of who gets represented.

Which painter did Angie name as a reference?

Angie named Marlene Dumas in our other interview. Tate’s biography places Dumas’s birth in Cape Town and her work in Amsterdam from 1976. It also records her use of magazine cuttings and photographs. That is the outside context, separate from Angie’s account of her own pictures.

Does Angie ever paint a man as a man?

Angie also showed me a sketch for a male nude commission. For this particular painting, she had started from a photograph.

And he asked me for an imaginative version of his partner naked. He sent me a picture of him, like laying down on a lawn. And I imagined the rest.

How did Angie change the pose?

So I imagine his whole body. I don't know if this part is accurate, but I think it does. I just tried to change the attitude a little bit to make it a little bit, a little bit sweeter.

What does another woman’s portrait change?

Tate’s Sylvia Sleigh exhibition account offers a comparison I am bringing to the conversation, not an influence Angie claimed. Sleigh painted male nudes with individual details such as body hair and tan lines. Angie’s symbols and her commission take their own routes. Both make the artist’s choice worth looking at.

Keep looking, my loves. Our conversation about the paint Angie works with follows the materials behind her pictures. Find more makers in our Art stories, then Explore My Ideal World.