As a painter, I vandalize my own work. I am currently Painting on large pieces of unstretched canvas with my own personalized collection of not just explorative mediums. But also junk that has accumulated time and memories used in my work as in some ways a visual vessel or anchor. I spend most of my time covering elements in my work.
Many of these elements I will dig out again as the painting progresses. To make my work I often scraped paint off my surfaces, redraw images, and paint over the images that were already there. Often my pieces collage elements of my own artwork and writing with common cultural symbols. This push and pull of my visual work represents how I tend to communicate within the world. I realize that I have a hard time trying to articulate my feelings, and I fear being misunderstood because of them. I don’t want to be considered dramatic or irrational when I vocalize my feelings of distress as a black woman. Mental illness in the black community is heavily stigmatized and viewed as a burden. As Black women's voices are not only not heard in society but in their own communities and as their voices become less important they are then dehumanized.
These thoughts are intertwined into my work and they are tied to trauma, memories, and humor. My work incorporates past memories of my childhood Both good ones and bad ones that I can't seem to let go of. Humor and music are derived from my family's taste.
Sometimes my work includes things I wanted to say to certain family members but didn't have the courage to. Because I don't have the courage to let go of these memories, words, or feelings, I am trying to find a way to tie up these loose ends that I find myself tripping over through my work.
The struggle of vulnerability has haunted black families for generations and appears frequently in my paintings, like a ghost. Because of this dynamic, I feel the need to encrypt my thoughts. I use symbolic and abstract imagery, fonts, and materials to cover, or in some ways enhance, what I'm trying to convey. This can make my work seemingly colorful and dark at the same time. But still, I try my best to be my most authentic self and I work to convince myself that I'm allowed to take up space —that I'm allowed to be unkempt, inadequate, and most significantly, emotional. Painting for me is how I show the world my raw emotions, wounds, and reflections. I see my paintings as a bottle that can hold these “unwanted” expressions. The canvas acts as the bottle in which my painting functions as the letters that are ultimately thrown into a sea of people.
My goal as an artist has never been to create work that lasts decades or even to paint a masterpiece. My view of mortality is that we die when die, it feels futile to create a piece that outlasts me. My goal is to create an artwork that demands recognition for what I am feeling and becomes my desperate attempt to be understood. I make my work in order for the viewer to feel comforted by knowing that they’re not alone in trying to communicate their personal experiences to others.
