Artist Statement

Through painting, drawing, mixed media, and collage my work explores questions of racial identity and perception through various contexts, ranging from the personal to the political. It is an ongoing investigation into the history of Blacks in America, rooted in chronologically parallel histories. I knit together American events and iconography which are typically recalled in isolation. The result is a new context within which we understand our histories as singular and intersectional. I unite historical perspectives into multi-layered compositions to highlight the false narratives and promises of freedom for Black people in America. The work both embraces and subversively challenges a time and space in which America is an equitable and safe place for Black people.

The works employ archival images pulled from such sources as vintage Creole cookbooks, comic books, 1860’s issues of Harper’s Bazaar housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and photojournalism of the Civil Rights era, among others. Although images are pulled from the annals of history, the works pivot to a contemporary conversation about the Black experience in the face of racial tensions and violence that affect Black men and women in a way that often goes unnoticed in the larger discourse.