Digital Blackface & Appropriation Politics: An Ozy Worldy Expose
Attenzione! Pickpocket!
“Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth.” ― Pablo Picasso
To understand Ozy, we must cast our minds back to arguably one of the most prolific cases of Black fishing we’ve witnessed in the 21st century.
When news of Rachel Dolezal’s egregious lie first broke on the internet, the world was stunned for the most part. To put it simply, a white woman with box braids & a fake tan managed to pass as a POC and saunter into Black spaces unchallenged. Kanekalon in toe, she steadily climbed the ranks and bagged a high-ranking position as CEO of the NAACP in their Washington division. A historically Black civil rights organisation “committed to dismantling racism and disrupting inequality”. Yet here was Dolezal manipulating the same systems that organisations like the NAACP seek to destroy for her own financial and social gain.
Existing between two worlds undetected and cosplaying as a Black woman with 3C/4A hair, head wraps and tanned skin simply because she could. Using thousands of little white lies to entrench a web of deceit around herself and the life she’d created. Dolezal was a bonafide culture vulture. A fraud that claimed to not believe race is real but Blackfishes for the access & opportunities it affords her; opportunities she’s effectively stealing from Black women. A scholarship at an HBU, multiple awards and a seat at the head of a historically Black table. In the midst of all, Dolezal bookended her scandal and was even accused of plagiarising her “Black identity-inspired” artwork. Gross, cringe and would be funny if it wasn’t so damagingly brazen.
Now that we’ve had a quick refresher on the last shocking display of Blackface, let me tell you about an Italian artist whose ethnic ambiguity and irreverence for paint-pinching from Black artists has completely rocked the Black Twitter space and toppled him off the platform on the same day.
Ozy Worldy is a purposefully elusive Italian contemporary artist; his real name, age and face are unknown. Why the Banksy-esque anonymity you might ask? According to a 2020 interview with an Italian magazine, it’s “…so that his art speaks his language and conveys his message, so that he can take on the face of each person who is confronted with it.” Even after an extensive 6-hour Google search, you’d still be hard-pressed to find any real information on who Ozy actually is. His website states the following:
“Ozy Worldy is an artist born and raised in Southern Italy. He fell in love with art in his childhood and kept developing his passion year after year, until he finally found a unique, easily recognisable style. Tribal signs, expressive figures and contrasting colors are part of Ozy's paintings.”- ozyworldy.com/about
Unique? Debatable. Easily recognisable style? Without a doubt! He’s often cited as being heavily inspired by the Hip-Hop scene, but his most evident muse is undeniably the late Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Basquiat has an incredibly unique signature. His art is rich with abstract brushwork, block letters, distorted faces, expressionistic storytelling, his SAMO graffiti artwork & the juxtaposition of academic references through anatomical drawings with his lived experience. Both Basquiat and Kerry James Marshall used their art to explore their place in the world as Black men and in turn subvert the negative societal perceptions surrounding it within the art space; peeling back its romantic allure to reveal its beating gritty bleeding heart beneath. They’d tackle themes of exploitation & police brutality in a way that was so intrinsically linked with their identity that they’re inherently and unapologetically Black. In an interview with the New Yorker Marshall discussed his intention behind his famous self-portrait stating “Being Black was a negative, and for me this was the starting point from which I could build an image of Blackness without those negative associations.”
For years, Worldy found his way across many of our socials because of his intrinsically Black art pieces. His connection to Blackness was seemingly self-evident; he’d adopted an art style that could only be described as an homage to the likes of Basquiat and Kerry James Marshall, with African tribal nods & Hip Hop references dotted throughout. His work was seen as a bold artistic expression of Blackness, so much so that earlier this year he was selected alongside 7 other Black artists to exhibit their work on the SuperRare platform for a curated Black history month feature entitled “Celebrating Black Figuration”. The internet praised him as an ambitious & talented artist whose work served as a commentary on a culture that is often imitated by those on its fringes but rarely widely respected or understood; a culture the world genuinely believed he was a part of.
On June 26th Worldy’s mystique was swiftly unmasked when Vine star turned Grammy award-winning producer Jay Versace tweeted the following to his 1.6 million followers in reply to a collage of Worldy’s art pieces:
Worldy’s subsequent defensive and dismissive tweets in response led to an onslaught of angry and interrogative replies from hundreds of former fans of his work. Users on the platform were quick to point out that:
“…He took one of the most famous self-portraits ever made by a black artist, repainted it as a demon, and then said it had nothing to do with race. The whole thing is a mess.” - @steringcrispin (Via Twitter)
Many felt that the “clarity” he provided about his race, art and what it represents proved that his work was nothing more than a bastardised depiction of the Black experience. A stereotypical minstrel caricature of Blackness through a jaded white lens.
He purposefully concealed his identity and peppered the idea of him being a Black man to masquerade as someone of the culture in order to steal a piece of the rewards it could offer him. Wearing brown jumpers underneath his paint coats to further cement his false identity into the cultural zeitgeist.
A quick Google reverse image search of his artwork (specifically his “Demon” piece) and you won’t be surprised to find even a computer algorithm thinks it’s the work of KJM. Upon further investigation, the majority of his work contains incredibly loaded descriptions such as ‘Beast’, ‘Demon’, ‘Vandal’ & ‘Poor Man’ with very obvious depictions of Black men.
A week after disappearing from social media, Worldy returned to Twitter with a lengthy 708-word “apology”, stating that he used Black emojis because “even though [he’s] caucasian [his] skin is not milky white”. Despite having never publicly cited KJM as an influential part of his artistic journey or a reference in his art style, he went on to clarify that “ it's needless to hide [his] inspiration from artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat or Kerry James Marshall…[His] intention was purely artistic and in good faith…from now on, there will be no more references”. His Instagram account remains private and the noise of the controversy surrounding him has appeared to die down. The court of public opinion found him guilty by way of omission and took his “apology” as a gaslighting deflection of sorts.
This topic isn’t just one of artistic integrity or creative freedom but of appropriation, accountability and the fine balance between theft & inspiration. Black Art is not a genre that anyone can simply dip in and out of to tell their own stories. The subjectivity of art itself suggests that there’s an element of personal truth the artist paints into their work and in Ozy’s case, whether intentional or not, his art revealed a negative truth about his perception of Black people. Ozy is a talented artist, that’s an undeniable fact. Though now, it’s likely that his art will forever be plunged into obscurity, with only his wealthy white counterparts to praise him in secret.
