Country of Origin: Chicago, Illinois

Based In: Cincinnati, Ohio

Main Medium: Conceptual Artist

About
I make images and objects that serve as proxies to interact with everyday people. I think a lot about where people are and how to bring the work to them. If change is possible, it can't happen without everyday people. I don't really look forward into the future or backwards into the past. I'm interested in right now. I'm a documentarian. I'm a cultural critic. I'm a mental health specialist and discourse facilitator. I primarily make works born from my first hand experience. My authentic voice is the only voice that matters in the creative process.

About their Work
My work takes a dialectical behavioral approach to addressing culturally normalized racial experiences that perpetuate historical trauma in contemporary America. Using an evidenced-based, Dialectical Behavioral Therapeutic model (DBT), I create paint, sculptural and lens-based projects that explore negative archetypes and stark racial disparities still operating in the language and psychology of contemporary American culture. I create counter narratives, new definitions and safe spaces for conversations that lead to increased empathy and understanding, increased insight, public engagement and community impact. Simultaneously, my work gives an equitable share of the Black trauma experience to our white counterparts so that they can share the responsibility of doing the work that most of us have been doing alone for so long. Equity, Inclusion and Diversity conversations are a ubiquitous part of the American experience at the moment and I use my work to not only access white spaces but to pull my white counterparts into Black spaces taking a holistic approach to the DEI model. My images are generalized to provoke the viewer to project their own thoughts, feelings and bias onto the work creating the impetus for discussion.