Artist Statement

As a community artist in inner city Baltimore, my work seeks to surface and discuss issues revolving around urban social and racial divides, both physical and perceived. I work both collaboratively and independently.

My collaborative work consists of portraiture, video, and public murals, most often painted in Baltimore City schools. I work collaboratively because I believe that the city’s residents hold the creative solutions to Baltimore’s social problems. I work collaboratively because I believe art and culture are as important to a society as any physical need. I work collaboratively because it fosters ethnic diversity and multiculturalism by building an environment of tolerance and respect.

My independent work moves fluidly between drawing, painting and poetry. The technique of my charcoal drawings is inspired by Seurat’s drawings. They depict people holding each other and are about relationships of dependency. My oil paintings are often introspective self-portraits, painted from life with a limited palette of white, burnt umber, yellow ochre and ultramarine blue. Reoccurring images in my paintings are glasses of water, circles, compositions of colored paper, and dramatic lighting.

My community and independent work could not exist without my writing. I continuously express my relationship with Baltimore through a series of poems about the city. My writing includes just as much of my community and myself as the images I make.