Chronicling the experiences of being an African American middle-class girl in present-day society constitutes the main subject of my artistic inquiry. Working through the disciplines of drawing and painting, I have created works that explore the themes of developing cultural and sexual identity through the lenses of childhood and adolescence. The child’s gaze delivers a twisted, yet intriguing, perspective as it confronts the viewer with horror and humor. The affective charge of each picture delivers a sort of punchline by depicting non-verbal, yet very tense, interactions within this fictionalized fantasy realm. Occupying environments that are neither bucolic nor urban, the young girls investigate the origins and manifestations of race and social taboo through their precocious purview.

Portraiture in this series aims to de-sublimate the repression of childhood trauma. The pictorial technique of using a tightly cropped, almost claustrophobic, composition condenses and intensifies the emotional effect that each portrait exacts upon the viewer. Whether it’s the wrinkles on their faces, or the deathly tone that coats their skin, many of these girls appear to be much older than they their size and costume would seem to assert. This paradox suggests that childhood is not only a period of innocence and nostalgia, it is in fact a period marked by an intense and difficult process of coming to terms with the world. Looks of anguish through voided eyes accompany the flattened out method in which they have been painted as formal rendering reiterates the conceptual sentiment. These girls long to find their identity and the resilience to survive and flourish in a world that can seem perplexing and uncomfortable.