As a painter who often depicts her own likeness, people find it surprising when I say my work is not necessarily about me. While my work may start with a personal experience, I seek to capture the context of that experience. Everything that I encounter as a queer Black woman exists in a much wider compilation of (hi)stories. My work involves identity, Black feminist theory, internal conflict, power of pleasure, sexuality, and longing. I seek to understand perception, how my identity can act as a mask or a curtain, something aggrandizing or nullifying. 

This tension of the gaze is everything. I ask how to be sexual but not sexualized. My work challenges the ‘controlling images’ imposed on Black women while also embracing the complexities of seeking liberation and agency. I celebrate the vulnerability I put forth in my work, and I wish for my viewer to see themselves in my figures. Ultimately, I paint skin with visceral fleshiness to affirm presence and expression in my own terms.