Women Of Color Don´t Receive Flowers
In this series, Panmela Castro paints flowers she received from friends, colleagues, and strangers. Each flower is titled with the name of the person who offered it. The gesture begins as a personal search for affection but also comments on the historical absence of this kind of recognition for Black women.
The title of the series ironically references a phrase that went viral on social media — “Black women don’t get flowers” — and engages with the theory of the loneliness of the Black woman, developed by authors such as Ana Cláudia Lemos Pacheco, Claudete Alves, and Bell Hooks. By turning each flower into a painting, the artist archives acts of care and challenges the symbolic erasure of these experiences.
The works serve as sensitive records of an attempt at connection. Each image carries a name, a relationship, a memory — blurring the lines between intimate gesture, personal performance, and social critique.

