La Vaughn Belle is an artist from the United States Virgin Islands who uses a variety of media including drawings, paintings, woodwork, ceramics, photography, and video.

"[2] She seeks to undermine and challenge the European-based hierarchical caste system in the Caribbean, which she believes places people of African descent at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Belle co-created the statue "I Am Queen Mary" with fellow black artist Jeannette Ehlers to challenge "Denmark’s collective memory" about slavery.

[4][5] The 23-foot statue depicts Mary Thomas, who helped lead the 1878 "Fireburn" labor riot in St. Croix where workers in the Danish West Indies staged a protest.

[6][7][8] She sits on a peacock chair, recalling “the iconic 1967 photograph of Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party”[8] and the plinth incorporates “coral cut from the ocean by enslaved Africans gathered from ruins of the foundations of historic buildings on St. Croix.”[1][8] In one hand she holds a torch, and the other holds a West Indian cane bill (a tool for cutting sugarcane cutting), which the artists state symbolizes the “resistance strategies” of the enslaved people who toiled in Danish colonies.