Trini Artist Nneka Jones Lands TIME Magazine Cover!

This week’s TIME magazine’s The New American Revolution cover story by Pharrell Williams, features an American flag artwork created by Trini visual artist, Nneka Jones.

The American Flag, one of the most recognizable and powerful symbols of American patriotism, has been reimagined by the 23 year old Trinidadian artist in her first TIME cover.

Trini Artist Nneka Jones & Her First TIME Mag Cover

The New American Revolution cover story is a series of conversations and essays about creating a more equitable future for Black Americans, curated by recording artist and producer Pharrell Williams for the Aug. 31-Sep. 7 issue.

According to TIME, its international art director Victor Williams invited Nneka Jones, whose photo-realistic painting of George Floyd caught his eye on Instagram, to create her first TIME cover: an American flag image that speaks to where the country is now.

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Jones, who works in embroidery on canvas, created the artwork featured on the cover by stenciling the outline of the black stripes onto the canvas, and hand-embroidering them with black thread. The white stripes in between are raw canvas. Similarly, the stars are the white of the canvas and she hand-embroidered the black around the stars.

“Every time she pushes the needle through the canvas, it’s an act of intention that mirrors the marching, the protests, the push to form a more perfect union,” TIME’s Williams says. “It’s deliberate. It’s painstaking. It’s long. It’s hard. Each one of those stitches is a single person’s story, a single person’s travails. That’s why we wanted to make the stitches visible.” (Jones can attest to the hard part; her fingers got torn up and sore from sewing this portrait in about 24 hours to meet the magazine’s deadline; such pieces usually take a week to a month to produce.)

Nneka Jones, is a graduate of the University of Tampa in Florida and the founder of Art You Hungry.

Make sure to collect your copy of Time Magazine‘s August 31 – September 7 issue.

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