Artist Statement

I grew up in a household reared by a set of parents who were not privy to issues that negatively affected the inequalities of the Black community due to the burdens and challenges they faced that demanded their full attention. My parents’ relationship to race, politics, and identity was rooted in surviving the crack crisis. Consequently, survival also consumed my thoughts until the age of 21 when I witnessed the nation’s reaction to Trayvon Martin’s murder. Up until that point, I had no real relationship to race and what it meant to not only the American project itself but also to the material experiences of black people around the world. I formed a deep interest in the history of black resistance, and what resisting meant and can mean to modern-day organizing for freedom.

My artwork not only provides social commentary about the oppressed response to state violence, it also provokes a deep reflection and critical analysis of moments and people in time who sacrificed a great deal for the sake of liberation. I’ve recently been inspired to reimagine what resistance and victory can look like alongside social plights that are continuously fortified and sanctioned despite the clear violence imposed on society.  While rooting my artistry in both a resistive and imaginative framework, I grapple with the following questions: “What does the past mean to the present?” and “What does the past mean to the future?” 

My pieces probe the depths of our historical consciousness to stylistically depict subjects and figures committed to movements for liberation and freedom. My work combines portrait with literary technique to provoke profound meditations on the interplay between (or dialectic of) race, domination, subjectivity, incarceration, resistance, agency, and liberty in the vivid animation of civil rights leaders, freedom fighters, and systems disrupters. 

My art pieces are most powerfully consumed in conjunction with visual mediums (video) and/or auditorial mediums (song). These elements of my work are essential to my process and serve not only as inspiration for my process of curating art pieces but also as additional entry points to spark curiosity from the consumer.  The interplay of these mediums throughout my catalog creates an immersive experience, and an opportunity to engage with the underlying perspectives and ideas that informed the visual pieces of artwork themselves.   

Bio 

I am a multi-media artist from Watts, California who uses poetry, painting, and rap as pedagogical tools to engage both youth and adults directly impacted by Americas' carceral apparatus. I have dedicated my career to carceral work centered in education, justice and transformation. My experiences programing in carceral institutions both domestically and internationally has helped to inform the development of my original program titled The Story From Within. I hold a Master’s of Arts in Social Cultural Analysis from NYU and I am currently a Candidate in Howard University History program. Additionally, I am a visiting artist for the Prison Education Project, and the Director of Education and Curriculum Development at exalt youth.