Letting Our Hair Down at the NoMAA with artist Tafy LaPlanche
- Toni Grady
- Apr 30
- 5 min read
On March 13, 2025, at 6pm, NoMAA held an open reception to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the annual art exhibit, “Women in the Heights: Hair – Untangling Identity.” Though the exhibit only occupied one room, that one room was filled with art pieces that were larger than life. Over twenty artists allowed us strangers to be a part of their journeys for two hours.
During that time five women got in front of at least 100 people to share their spoken word, and many poems live at the gallery. One standout poem, Mari Padilla's “Curls curls curls," expressed the effects of white beauty standards: "Burning and stretching my curls to fit someone else’s version of beauty.”
The poem that can be heard at the gallery in audio recording powerfully expressed her frustration with trying to fit into America’s definition of “acceptable” until she couldn’t do it anymore. Padilla writes, “At 14, I got fed up with society’s American dream. / I let the water hit my head, / and my curls get reacquainted with their roots.”
Later, another artist, Massiel Alfonso, read her piece, “Pelo Malo” (translated to “Bad Hair”). Alfonso faced a similar experience as Padilla with the pressures of a (white) American hair care routine. The room began to snap their fingers and clink their cups as she read, “Like if my hair can be sin and swim and say: Look I made it. I survived. Can I be American now? Can I be unheard now?”
As we admired each other’s beauty for the rest of the night, NoMAA’s exhibit would be the stepping-stone to celebrate everyone’s hair and identities.
NoMAA, standing for Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, is a non-profit gallery whose purpose is to nurture, encourage, and elevate works of artists and art organizations in Northern Manhattan. Opening in 2007, NoMAA was originally under the supervision of the Hispanic Federation until 2011 when the gallery claimed entire independency. Even though the gallery’s main purpose is to serve those in Northern Manhattan, on opening night there were people from all over New York City to share the experience.
The gallery did not take long to become crowded or for the artists to be swarmed like bees to a flower. What separated the artists from the enormous crowd were the long black lanyards they each had to wear with not only their names, but also the names of their pieces. Everyone admired everyone.
I had the pleasure of speaking to the beautiful and talented Tafy LaPlanche, an Afro-Latina artist with so curly even pinned up expressed volume playfully on her head. Born in Georgia but living in New York City, LaPlanche wore a shirt with bright yellow flowers on it and shiny orange pants. Below I share some of our discussion of her art piece, “A Heart in Love with Beauty Never Grows Old.”
Toni: Can you give me a little bit of insight into your painting and what it is that inspired you?
Tafy LaPlanche: Yeah, absolutely! This painting is called “A Heart in Love with Beauty Never Grows Old”, and to kind of the outside eye it’s just a beautiful woman that makes you stop in your tracks. But the background story of it is the lady in the painting actually is her first time letting her curls show. So, growing up all through her life she always had to perm her hair, which was very similar to my story. And I actually remember seeing her and being like, “Oh my God. I want to be her when I grow up. Like look at her and her curls.”
As I was painting her, she told me how she just started and how she was always afraid to wear her hair curly because she thought people would not view her as this beautiful woman. It made me think so much. Like this mindset, it took away from this kind of just this outside view of people had of me and what I needed to realize was my inner beauty and what I had in order to show it on the outside. So, it really was just this moment in time that I really wanted to capture just her and to let her know that she was on the right journey on just being herself. And not only that she will not only find herself beautiful but doing that other people will as well. All in a genuine way.
T: Wow. I am not sure what to say. The fact this is a real person who was going through something similar to you without you even knowing immediately is beautiful in its own way. As if the universe put you two together to lift each other up. How long have you been capturing moments like this or was this your first time with a real person?
LaPlanche: I have actually just started painting stuff like this at the start of Covid. I think that during Covid it was just a time where you sat with yourself for very long hours and at a certain point I was like “I am on my 15th piece of sour bread. What else is there for me to do?” You know? And you are lost in your thoughts for a while and I’m half Puerto Rican and half Haitian. I always felt I had always been put into one box or another like there were no merging of the two. There was no being just a New Yorker or being a girl. So, I started to really color that into my paintings and how people self-identify but also how they felt about how other people identify them.
I love this concept for portraits where it is a vulnerable state where you are kind of inviting people to look at you and form their own perspective of you. But I think that it’s used in a way where the viewer can reflect upon themselves. They see someone else, but I think they see a little bit of themselves. Even if it’s not of them but their side of some side of emotion or some sort of realization even if it’s the opposite of what they see. It’s them unlocking a part of them. And I really find that to be a beautiful conversation between the piece and the viewer.
T: Everything you’re saying is true because I am a mixed lady myself. Right away when looking at this portrait and then talking to you about it, I felt my own sense of discovery. The strongest urge to let my curls out instead of hiding them. And then the feeling goes beyond that. Just the desire to embrace myself and figure out whatever that may mean. Is there any advice you would want to give the reader(s)?
LaPlanche: Oh yes. You are beautiful both inside and out. Don’t ever lock it away and let it be seen whether it’s through art or something else. Let your hair down and be free.
Please check out Tafy LaPlanche's other work HERE.
If you get the chance, check out the NoMAA before the “Women in the Heights: Hair” exhibit closes on June 30th.
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