Aya Brown’s Essential Portraiture

In January 2020, artist Aya Brown was admitted to a hospital in New York City. With the help of her sister Aja, a teaching assistant, and that of a committed, if overworked, third-shift nurse, Brown made a full recovery. After her release, she found herself ruminating on the centrality of women in both formal and informal care economies, the racial and gender composition of those tasked with the bulk of social reproduction. The pandemic would make these matters plain, the dual crises of work and