Tracey Rose

The character portrayed by Rose in this photograph, Lovemefuckme, wears black and white boxing gloves with the letters of the alphabet on each, arranged to spell ‘love’ and ‘fuck’ respectively. Using the gloves to punch her face, Lovemefuckme’s aggression towards herself conveys the shifting tensions between self-love and self-hate. The absence of an external opponent suggests an internal conflict perhaps with anger, shame and guilt. In combat with her insecurities, she struggles between the desire to be loved and the fear of being hurt, though she stands ready for the next blow.

Lovemefuckme’s body becomes a site of violence between Blackness and whiteness, made visible through the monochrome duality of her identity. As she conditions her body to withstand trauma, she endures the ambivalent relationship between pain and pleasure, including strength and vulnerability. Lovemefuckme symbolizes the anxieties, desires, fears and hopes of an individual caught between disparate worlds.