"...refusing to settle into a single category while remaining grounded in material presence and historical reference."

My practice engages history directly, working through objects, images, and forms that carry the weight of lived experience. The approach is conceptual at its core, shaped by my reflections on America’s history and my place within it. It is grounded in process, where structure, color, and surface are brought into alignment with what is being interrogated, allowing each piece to reflect the temperament of larger historical narratives and personal inheritance.

I build through a method aligned with bricolage, drawing from what already exists and reconfiguring it to confront systems of value, power, and erasure. Texts drawn from anthropology, medicine, and law, alongside ancestral-picked cotton, shredded currency, vintage furniture, and textiles, operate as evidence. When brought into relationship, they do not illustrate history, they expose it. This process allows each piece to hold tension, between what is seen and unseen, valued and dismissed, preserved and erased.

Cutting, tearing, stitching, and suspending are central actions. These gestures function as acts of repair, but they do not resolve rupture. They keep it visible. My approach to these processes is informed by the guidance of Sam Gilliam and Frank Smith, whose influence shaped how I understand process as a space of invention, risk, and discovery. Through that lineage, the sewing machine becomes a drawing tool, and suspension becomes a way to release the composition from fixed boundaries.

Canvas moves beyond a fixed surface, extending into space through the integration of flags, garments, upholstery, and embroidered fabrics. Each stitch operates as both mark and index, carrying forward memory, labor, and transformation. What emerges exists between painting, sculpture, installation, and object-making, refusing to settle into a single category while remaining grounded in material presence and historical reference.

This same language extends into moving image and performance. The narratives, memories, and tensions that shape the physical pieces carry forward into film and live action, where time, presence, and the body become additional elements in the composition. These forms are not separate, they operate within the same framework, shaped by the same questions of history, visibility, and lived experience.

Every decision is intentional. Copper leaf is left untreated so it can oxidize, reflecting cycles of neglect and change within urban environments. Black glitter holds the visual language of the street, both reflective and abrasive. Rope carries a layered history tied to labor, bondage, and endurance, holding within it both violence and survival. These elements arrive with meaning already embedded, before they are brought into the composition.

At its core, my practice understands art as both mirror and bridge. It reflects who we are while offering a path toward what we might become. The practice insists on presence, holding what has been overlooked, misread, or dismissed, and carrying it forward with clarity. Through this, I am building a language grounded in memory, resistance, and renewal.