Residue Series

This series explores perception of the trauma of slavery. Trauma from our past and how it continues to envelop our psyche today. The spirit of slavery that makes our color a mark of degradation is still very much with us today. The disaster of chattel slavery is ongoing, these paintings suggest the precarities of the afterlives of slavery. In these works, I transform the perception of space and encourage the viewer to enter and experience - rather than passively view paintings hanging on a wall. These paintings in fact are installation paintings, they pull the viewer in, and no longer is the viewer in control. The first element of these installations is the sculptural ready-made backpacks. Each backpack is filled with rope, overflowing the pockets and crevices, just like the lineage of slavery and opression that continues to run rampant. Careful placements of these backpacks hang from a panel of camouflage background. A host of violent scenarios come to mind when confronted with that imagery. The paintings are not didactic, they lack a defined story, I want to leave room for viewers' interpretation. The integration of
camouflage into these works is an intentional decision, instigating notions of the innate need to continue to fight and resist. The paintings are about capturing moments and reflecting the nuances of the trauma of the past. In order to convey that feeling, I chose to paint these paintings upside down. After the paintings were completed, they are turned the right side up. Although turned the right side up it is still evident that they were painted upside down leading to gravity defying drips coursing upwardly on the canvases. Building upon the inversion fractures of artist Georg Baselitz, to symbolize a violent societal rupture, I engage this method to socially, politically, and culturally uproot my viewers. These paintings are filled with metaphors, exposing visceral feelings of fear and chaos in a society divided. As I abstract the reality we have come to know, viewers can no longer take a passive role in the afterlives of slavery.