The notion of beauty is a theme that has recurred in his work of Kerry James Marshall. He has made an entire series based on the figure of the Black Venus, that he derived from the popular Mexican cartoon series La Venus Negra: “Up until then, I had not considered that a black woman could be considered as a goddess of love and beauty. Even, I took the classic European ideal for granted. After reading La Venus Negra I wanted to develop a stylised representation of a beauty that would be unequivocally black.”