Paint & Polish: Cultural Economy & Visual Culture from the Chicago West-Side

Paint & Polish sources visual inspiration from the microeconomic culture of Hispanic and African-American nail artists in the Northwest Side of Chicago. It fosters engagement with these artists by highlighting their work and collaborating with them.

Included are oral histories, conversations with various nail artists, their portraits by Helen Maurene Cooper, and photography from their business. By documenting the community, this set of materials engages with it profoundly. Inspired by these sources and the visually tempting, distinct style of the nail art, Cooper’s photographic artworks open a gateway to elaborate on the visual identification of nail art. In both photography and the nail art scene, concerns such as gesture, self-expression, and labor are prominent. The accompanying writings take these issues into consideration.