ABOUT MY WORK

Using mediums such as oil pastel, soft pastel, and collage, I depict members of the Black Community with an elegance that is figuratively and in many ways literally, outside of the harsh realities, traumatic experiences, and historical stereotypes represented in American Media. My work emphasizes the connection between man, child, and material through a simple, warm color scheme, small paper cutouts, and a hands-on approach of loose and playful gestures. This approach embodies the concept of taking baby steps to tackle great heights. 
Much like Kehinde Wiley, my work focuses on appropriating historically relevant European figures as a means to break free of images that depict black bodies in the posture of servitude or enslavement. Using references from Western Anglo Saxon Protestant idols such as, René Descartes William Shakespeare, Alexander the Great, Madame de Pompadour, and Gentile da Fabriano, I integrate 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 a parallel turned historical role-reversal. By working under these influences, I seek to empower such figures to remain in a space that allows each one their own personal “main character” moment. I aim to effectively give the black-bodied individual the space to redeem a position that was compromised or neglected, whether throughout history or at some point today.