STATEMENT OF WORK

My art is shaped by the fluidity of memory and lived experience as a Black American. I merge digital collage, acetate layering, and painted surfaces to construct surreal, chaotic scenes that examine how perception forms from fragmented, altered images. Through shifts in scale and color, I explore the emotional weight of distortion and the relational nature of color itself. Cool blue tones and delicate, organic brushstrokes are used to reframe violent imagery, rendering it calm and dreamlike—like the quiet power of ocean waves.

I often paint family and friends as photographic negatives, transforming brown and Black skin into cool, inverted tones. This strategy removes them from racialized bias while positioning them as stand-ins for those historically othered or unseen. My compositions usually feature two or more figures in exaggerated motion, inspired by theatrical gesture and artifice. These moments of staged movement signal to the viewer that the work is a constructed representation—a layered performance rather than a literal depiction.

Technology is integral to both my process and how viewers engage with the work. I use my phone to photograph, edit, and distort color—then paint from these altered images. Viewers are invited to activate their phone’s “classic invert” display setting to reveal hidden layers within the paintings. This interaction transforms the blue figures back into Black bodies, turning the phone into a lens that complicates how we see race, information, and misrepresentation in the digital age.

My large-scale paintings are ambiguous portraits of personal tension—mapping my inner world and its entanglement with violence, care, and everyday life. Through these layered visual languages, I ask viewers to reconsider how race, perception, and power circulate in both intimate and public spheres.