Only time they find the Clit is when Painting

"Suzy and the Elders" and "Only time they Find the Clit is to restrict it" are a commentary on the lack of control that women are afforded when it comes to their sexual agency. The two pieces are based on the story from the Bible about Susanna and the Elders and loosely inspired by the works of Artemisia Gentileschi and Robert Colescott, both whom created their own paintings based on the tale. In the Biblical story, Susanna is a fair Hebrew wife who is falsely accused of adultery by two older men whose advances she had turned down. She is arrested and almost put to death until Daniel, another man, advocates for a her. Susanna is essentially being punished for defending her sexual agency and as a result was wrongly accused and almost persecuted for them. Her voice doesn't seem to carry much weight in the matter in the eyes of the men and sadly that way of thinking hasn't changed much when it comes to women's issues. Unlike Gentileschi and Colescott, in her two works, Salami places the focus on black female bodies and the symbolic hands that have always been eager to violate them through laws that limit their rights, victim blaming and oversexualization, or indifference when help is needed.