So growing up, I was always into art,
but I didn't quite know that there was
a way to become a professional artist.
I don't think it clicked until I was in high school,
until I found the internet and I was like able to be exposed
to just a broader range of artists.
there wasn't just one way
I still consider myself an artist,
but I prefer the term image-maker
because it's like an umbrella term for me.
through image-making, I'm making paintings,
I'm making drawings, I am making photos.
Either I'm standing in front of the camera
or I'm on the other end, creative directing.
I feel that all is just image-making in a sense.
There's more to say than just being an artist.
(chill music)
When I'm making images
and the focus of my images are black people,
I find it really important to just
we come in so many different colors, shapes, features.
And it's like, black people have different undertones.
We can be the same shade,
but we can have very different undertones in our skin
that the way light reflects off our skin
looks a little different.
Part of me representing that is really fun,
because I just love color.
There's endless color combinations to make,
representing black skin.
I really want any black person to look at it and be like,
"Oh, this is speaking to me
because this looks like someone I know.
This looks like my friend or my cousin, my aunt."
You can look at it and it can be like a reflection
and a celebration of something
that is really true to your life.
And also, it just gives
To imagine outside of just what this reality is,
but to see yourself in that too.
To be included in that world that's separate,
but that's also
Just through books she kept in the house
or paintings and prints of black painters.
But once I stepped out of my grandma's house,
it wasn't always the case, you know?
So I was like,
"Okay, I don't really see the same kind of art
in textbooks in my school."
Not really learning about that in the curriculum.
Or not a lot of it is happening on TV.
So I'm like, "There needs to be that introduction."
I feel like earlier on and I mean, it's happening now,
but I think it's very important for it to happen
early on for black kids everywhere.
To just know that they're included.
I grew into my queer identity thanks to New York (giggles)
and thanks to the internet and Tumblr
and all of the discourse that I found online,
that really helped.
I got to experiment a lot with my style
and then also learning terms and academia.
Because I really wasn't super aware
that there was such a broad spectrum of gender.
I have queer people in my family and I know queer people.
They like to be perceived a certain way,
but sometimes in the black community,
I feel like there's like, and it's not a bad thing,
but there's a limitation with language.
And I was reading a lot of things and I was like,
"Whoa, you don't have to be either or."
You can be exempt from the binary in a way
where you don't have to feel like you have to adhere
to certain social constructs or social norms in a sense.
It was confusing for me at first.
I felt it, but I didn't really know
how to verbalize it at first.
Over the years, I've just found myself way more comfortable
being open to a whole spectrum
of what there is to be perceived as I guess.
And I can't move in a way
where I'm not fully expressing who I am
because as someone who makes art, too.
(chill music)
When I was first starting,
just making a lot of portraits
and just doing a lot of faces,
they were genderless to me too.
And this was before I even was really interrogating
my own gender identity.
I was like,
that anyone can kind of look at and just be like,
"Okay, I resonate with this in some sense."
I would feel it was necessary
to kind of want to include that genderless identity
because it really helped a broader representation.
If there's something depicted that's a little more romantic,
it's just not a hetero romantic couple.
People of different identities
can kind of engage with it in a way
where it doesn't necessarily have to be a queer image,
but it speaks to that audience still too.
I don't know, something about making art really does help
with exploring gender identity.
A personal goal is to just
I'm really excited to take these drawings and paintings
and just really bring a whole new life to them.
I've started doing a wearable collection,
designing garments, screen printing, animation,
all types of moving image,
other realms of creative direction.
(upbeat music)