Untitled (Ref. #36), from the series Character Recognition,

2006–07

Greene’s series Character Recognition presents the artist’s body in tightly framed fragments using the nineteenth-century ambrotype process, in which an image is printed onto a glass plate displayed against a dark background. Greene used black glass as the base for her ambrotypes to emphasize depth and tonal variations in the depiction of her skin. In these works, Greene submits her individual features to close examination to evoke the visual assessment enslaved people were forced to endure during the transatlantic slave trade. Greene wanted to ask herself, “What do people see when they look at me? Do my strong teeth make me a strong worker? Does my character resonate louder than my skin tone?”