luv
the
finest
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ARTIST STATEMENT - May 2016

Unity isn’t as simple as holding hands and singing songs. A community becomes more unified once the people within it reflect on themselves and become aware of what the community needs from one another. I believe it is important for African Americans to become more unified, and my mixed media paper sculptures aim to not only explore issues within African American communities, but to also highlight blackness in a more positive way. In addition to my mixed media artwork, my hand-written poems address certain issues in these communities that need more attention and awareness such the issue of self-hatred, ignorance of ancestry, single-parent households, and disconnection from the spiritual self. My poems and artworks combined, reveal a more positive position on these issues by emphasizing better knowledge of black history, having a more valued perspective of the black body, having a closer knit foundation at home, and deeper consciousness of the black soul. Each image is inspired by a different Adinkra symbol. These symbols correspond to West African proverbs that have inspired my project as whole. Each of these four topics have been paired with a specific Adinkra symbol and my poems redirect their meaning from an African American angle. My use of paper in this project gives my images some volume by extending strips of paper from it; creating an interaction between the wall space, the poetry, and the images. The combination of the poems and the images give depth and personalization to each work, unifying them as a whole body of work, tying them to African heritage, as well as emphasizing black value and the importance of unity.