Statement

As a minority, the western art history learning experience affected me in interesting ways. Firstly, it caused me to resign myself to acknowledging that I didn't exist within the boundaries of what was once considered the “ideal” viewer. Around this viewer, the conceptual foundations of much of 20^th century art is based. In essence, I was not a Caucasian Male. It is not the racial implication in itself that was of the most relevance to me. The concern was that art history (and subsequently the current art world that exists upon its back), has been structured around this particular group as a centralized, normative identity. Around this normative group, feminist, gay, and ethnic works are named such by their “deviation” from catering to this centralized viewer model.

My work is almost exclusively figurative, and mostly features white men. This choice is one that speaks to a broader personal narrative since childhood. Growing up black in the Information Age, I was constantly bombarded with images suggesting what I should want and aspire to be. Some of the advertising techniques used to sell a product are also selling goods incapable of being acquired. For example, many people are expected to respond to a luxury car ad, but some of the trappings that surround the car are also promoting ideas; affluence, power, even the sexual and cultural identity of the model. Some intangible qualities are inherent. Yet they are used in ways that are intended to illicit desire in us, not only for the product or service featured, but in the intangibles themselves. I became profoundly interested in the tropes of commercial illustration and design in advertising, and how their respective technical qualities are used to illicit desire in us. I mix their respective languages with those found in the world of painting (namely figurative realism, and painterly abstraction.) Also, there are instances where patterns, subjects, and iconography a derived primarily from fashion imagery are incorperated, a field chosen specifically for its commodification of appearance. The idea of these figures as salesmen, not only of what items they are used to sell, but of their own identities is something that runs deep through all of my figurative work.