Artist Statement
For years, I avoided addressing race in my art. Coming up in the late nineties and early 2000s, before movements like Black Lives Matter and DEI, race wasn’t openly discussed, especially in the art world. I inherited an internalized color blindness—common in my generation—but realized it was deeply flawed. As a biracial person navigating between two worlds, confronting race became complicated and painful.
Being biracial meant facing white supremacy from the start. My White mother was disowned for marrying my Black father, and I faced rejection for being a reminder of that forbidden union. Mixed-race people, often seen as privileged, still aren’t equal to White counterparts, and no amount of privilege changes that inequality.
In 2017, While attending a panel talk at the Charles Wright Museum I learned of the White Panther Party, a group of whites who allied with the Black Panthers in 1968 to combat fascism and support racial justice. This inspired a shift in my art. That year, the Charlottesville rally and further violence against the Black community would compel me to take a deeper look into how we got here. I immersed myself in Civil Rights history, got woke, and got to work in the studio.
In 2018, I presented two solo exhibitions, Troublemaker and Racism Sweet Racism, that marked a shift toward confronting the roots of inequality. My art continued to evolve with the trauma of police violence, finding inspiration in the Black Panther Party’s pride and resistance. empowerment, culminating in the birth of Zebra Mane (2022).
Today, I paint in black and white, symbolizing racial polarization and the emotional toll of “black-and-white” thinking. My work reflects personal reckoning and a call to action for racial justice. Through art, I confront inequality and seek space for change.