Navigating a maze of generational trauma, mental illness and rigid conformity, my childhood self mercilessly—and to hilarious outcomes—attempts to dissect the world around her, trying to figure out what she has to do or who she has to become so she can be safe and find The Joy.

This project examines interconnections of history, biography, and society while focusing on fantastical and surreal elements and characters in everyday life. As history and lives collide and intertwine with all the harshness and gentleness of the ordinary, the results on paper can look like magical realism, and this aesthetic is not coincidental: the reality of lived Blackness and Black girlhood involve so much that is extraordinary experiences requiring superhuman strength and perception that are simply an accepted  part of the fabric of everyday life. 

The emotional truth can seem stranger still, revealing deeper universal truths about human existence that are often repressed in our culture. It is these universal truths about the intersections of Blackness, Womanhood, and Girlhood that I seek to excavate through my work: the wickedness we endure, just trying to live and be loved; the ways we have had to hide our brilliance in order to survive and the ways we reinvent ourselves for emotional survival.