Wearer of All Socks, 2022

I work figuratively in pen, collage, and digital media to portray larger-than-life Black, female characters taking up space in real and imagined worlds. In my most recent series, I present a subjective Black woman’s fairytale to process interlocking structures of oppression. Like a storybook made into a mural, the installations are made up of digitally manipulated ballpoint pen drawings printed on adhesive paper that follow a Black woman in her nightdress and striped socks in a world made up of only her and her duplicates. Through flying hairballs, commoditized socks, the ever-present Source of All Hair, and her materially-minded counterpart the Wearer of All Socks, the work serves as an allegory for our contemporary condition, confronting questions of power, exploitation, and resistance.

I position this work within the speculative practice of the Black imaginary—a centering of Black dreams and fantasies to create alternate spaces of both comfort and confrontation. The spaces I create on are less utopia and more speculative test lab, a way to decenter broken realities and focus instead on the imaginary to help understand and rethink oppressive structures. Black hair in particular serves as a powerful protagonist in my work pushing the narrative forward in soft curls and defiant shapes.

My characters have presence, demanding attention from both near and far. To view the work, you must both step back to take in the enormity of the scenes and move in to observe the intricate markings of ballpoint pen—something confined to the literal margins of sketchbooks and notepads, now center stage and celebrated. As my work towers above you, I hope you will step back into a space of childhood, wonder, and possibility. That you would, in the best of ways, feel small and open, ready and willing to hear one more story.