Michael Ray Charles is a painter whose carefully crafted and faux-aged canvases and works on paper draw attention to race relations historically and in contemporary society. Borrowing pop culture images of characters such as Sambo, Buckwheat, and Aunt Jemima, Charles uses them ironically to comment on racial issues. His concerns range from how tobacco and liquor companies target marketing to minorities to the depiction of African Americans in the entertainment and sports industries to concepts of all-American (i.e., white) beauty.

This book is the catalog of the first major solo exhibition of Charles' work, staged by Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. It contains a broad range of color images of paintings and works on paper. In addition to the catalog entries, the book contains an interview between exhibit curator Don Bacigalupi, catalog essayist Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, and artist Michael Ray Charles, in which the artist discusses and interprets his work. An essay by writer and cultural historian Marilyn Kern-Foxworth situates Charles' work within contemporary African American culture.