ABOUT ME

Jaden E. McCreary is a Texas Based 2-D artist specializing in large-scale figurative and narrative drawings. Using mediums such as oil pastel, soft pastel, and collage, they depict members of the Black Community with an elegance that opposes the historical stereotypes and harsh representations of black-bodied people. She highlights the concept of origin and simplicity with fundamental elements such as her choice of toned paper as a material, natural environments as a setting, and pastels as her first tools used in mark-making. Much like Kehinde Wiley, her work focuses on appropriating historically relevant European figures to liberate the black body from postures of servitude or enslavement. Using references from “idols” such as René Descartes, William Shakespeare, Alexander the Great, Madame de Pompadour, and Gentile da Fabriano, she integrates references from notable and noble individuals within the black community such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Aemilia Bassano Lanier, and Malcolm X as a means of historical role-reversal.