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Black Presence

Black Joy is inherently abundant. It transcends everything that’s trying its hardest to hold it back and to diminish it. It is the purest and strongest because it’s birthed out of resistance. 

It wasn’t easy to produce work on Black Joy, rest, stillness, and abundance while constantly being confronted with a system that doesn’t value our presence. Most of these works you see in this space are works I created out of mourning, chaos, anger, and joy starting in the summer of 2020. In a season where I felt most conflicted and lost. Wanting to be joyful yet feeling guarded. Wanting to show up fully in my PWI yet feeling like my pain wasn’t welcomed. Art was my landing place taking all the anger and frustration from the system of injustice and onto paper paint and ink was my refuge. With each carving, I felt a release of tension from my shoulders. With each interview with Black women in my institution, I felt safe and heard. Through these works, I identified a feeling most Black individuals resonate with. The feeling of inherent Black Joy that is woven in our DNA yet the conflicting reality that tries to strip that away. The system that stings. Each headline stabs a wound that tries to heal. Racism is the word. This collection is Black Presence in and Synthesis of In-between. This body of work is the embodiment of existing in complicated spaces and somehow finding wholeness, joy, and stillness. It’s an embodiment of the exhale in-between. In-between hopes and dreams of better tomorrow’s, In-between mourning and laughter, in-between resistance, and rest.