Artist Statement

My work includes painting, performance, sculpture, sound, and installation. I began describing myself as an “urban shaman” about 20 years ago. It was a way for me to transform my past and the self-destructive direction I was going. I grew up in Bushwick in the 1980’s surrounded by an incredible amount of violence and drug abuse. I started searching for healing, transformation and a sense of purpose by connecting to my roots through African spiritual traditions, cosmologies, oral history and ideography. In addition to the shaman, I use strategies and traits of resistance leaders, trickers and maroons to create my own system, my own cosmology. I'm drawn to these figures as they counter the colonial framework. My work comes out of a belief that African spirituality can be a tool of resistance and self empowerment. In my sculptures I create structures that reflect multiple patterns and chance-operations that suggest the influence of spiritual forces behind the work and its ideas. Aesthetic principles like improvisation, polyrhythm and call and response express themselves in the materiality of my work. I use materials like fiber, textile and beads and transform them into artistic expressions beyond the Western canon. Each bead, each strand, each form wrapped and bound pulls from traditional African healing and spiritual practices. Similar to an nkisi (a Kongo spirit charm), my work is akin to power objects created from repetitive, conjuring actions, and a series of rituals that pull together various energies and forces. I am creating a grammar and a language around transformation. Ultimately my work is a repository of personal and collective histories.