My work is based on ideas related to beauty, self-image, cultural diversity, race, sexuality and the influence of media. It is intriguing to me that these issues affect how women view themselves and how society sees them. As an African American woman who grew up in New York City surrounded by multiculturalism I am fascinated by what ideas and implications can be made regarding aesthetic beauty, female identity and colonialism by fusing various components together on a visual plane.
I often depict women in pairs. I want the viewer to feel the intimacy between the figures in the painting or wonder about what type of relationship these women have with each other. My works of couples are about physical intimacy, sexual innuendo and love. They are purposely reductive and address the concept of disclosure. In contrast, my collage works are formally more complex and political. They are about contemporary women and media culture. These paintings force the viewer to decipher the meaning of what they see.
A key element in my work is the use of collaged images to embed additional meaning into my paintings. By placing media imagery onto women’s faces or bodies I create interesting situations. Slabs of meat become breasts or colored diamonds become a woman’s face. I mix figuration and abstraction, building texture and using color and composition to evoke a mood. The richness of the materials I use provides me with a way to combine multiple ideas within a space. By using cut up media imagery, I can create a new idea from something already in existence and even make it unrecognizable. I am influenced by the collage work of Wangechi Mutu and the bold color portraits of Mickalene Thomas, whose works are beautifully loaded with racial, social, and feminist commentary.
Whether I am making drawings or collage paintings, I am seeking to use these compositions to articulate specific or ambiguous narratives. There are times when I am direct and other times when I omit information and leave room for interpretation. I do not always want to tell the viewer what to think. For me, it is more interesting to pick and choose which visual information to reveal. I want my work to engage the viewer and lure them in, much like a real conversation, filled with both nuance and directness.