Artist Statement

Inspired by Black Existentialism, Afro-Futurism, and queerness, my work is the material depiction of existing in a liminal state of unknowing. Black Existentialism provides a philosophical framework to understand that despite the violence of Anti-Blackness, Black folks experience an abundance of life, joy, love, creativity, and so on. It reminds us that the periphery is an unbelievably generative place for life, creativity, love, and exploration. My work is generated out of an embrace of that periphery; it abstracts the fear, intimacy, uncertainty, ecstasy, discomfort, and more that is entangled with the lived experience of being “othered”. This results in pieces that are guided by the physicality of my hand, the painting as a structure and gesture to the body, the material, and how each of these come together to create a piece that is more than a ‘resolved’ image. The rejection of easy interpretation invites myself and the viewer to explore our imaginations and negotiate our perceived realities.  

Forefronting process has provided the means to enter an uncomfortable state of unknowing. An ‘unresolved’ work acts as a vehicle for imagination, tension, questioning, and more. The process of creation has the potential to be the finished work in itself. I am interested in how ‘paintings’ occupy space, how they bend, contort and physically interact with the viewer via residues of process and somatic motion. Even for the paintings that occupy more pictorial traditions, the treatment of surface and material still points towards sculpture and physical space. In some ways, it is a representation of my own body, how it has to move, think, and embrace discomfort.  As the viewer follows each brushstroke, bend, or fold and falls in and out of the voids, I want them to join me through the process of creation.