Size: 5.5 x 8.5
Pages: 120
 
100% Sugarcane Paper
Made by a Human BEING
Made with LOVE
 
Art Statement:
Art is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It documents history -- it helps educate people and store knowledge for generations to come. Generations of people that don’t see themselves in art lose their accounts. My art allows me to develop an identity and say:  “This is my story. This is what I know.”
 
These are some of the most important works I have made. They speak to who I am, my heritage, and my culture. Art unities communities allow us to have a dialogue about history and its legacy. 
 
Born in southern Virginia during the seventies to a family where art was not practiced or encouraged, I was drawn instinctively to Chuck Jones’ cartoons, Norman Rockwell’s c, and Bob Ross’ PBS show. I would try to imitate their art while watching cartoons. Twenty years later and entirely desolated by a bad marriage and subsequent relationships, I began to paint, reverting to the kinds of self-expression I felt closest to as a child. Finding freedom in my art, I found my voice through exile from friends and family. I discovered that under emotional distress and displacement, I could focus and paint at my strongest while feeling content and whole.
 
My work explores the relationship between Black diaspora sensibilities and urban spaces. With influences as diverse as Kara Walker and Jean-Michel Basquiat, new synergies are crafted from constructed and discovered layers. Currently living in Baltimore, I am interested in the sensation of moving, the deconstruction and reassembly of surfaces, and of forgetting and remembering what has come before.