POWER

Power, in this body of artworks, is treated as a condition rather than a possession, a force that circulates through language, material, and history, often unrecognized by those who generate it. The repeated appearance of the word Power in reverse across the paintings establishes a formal and conceptual through line, resisting immediate legibility and requiring a recalibration of sight. This reversal operates as both a perceptual disruption and a corrective device, informed by my lived experience of dyslexia and extended into a broader critique of how power is misread, misattributed, and structurally obscured. Within this framework, power is not absent, it is persistently present yet consistently misunderstood.

Artworks such as Black Dollars Matter and related paintings in the series situate this inquiry within the material language of currency and surface. American dollars are embedded, fragmented, and reassembled, foregrounding their role  as both symbol and instrument. Set against black glitter grounds that evoke the visual and physical texture of urban space, these artworks position Black economic participation as an active, generative force within the larger system, while simultaneously addressing its historical and ongoing undervaluation. The repetition of the reversed Power across multiple compositions functions as a visual refrain, reinforcing the dissonance between the presence of power and its recognition.

They Know Not Who They’re Fighting For and The Rigged Race sculpture extend the inquiry into the terrain of collective action and structural design. Informed by the events of January 2021, the former reflects on how power is performed and mobilized without full awareness of its beneficiaries. The Rigged Race constructs a system in plain view, a racetrack embedded with language, references to redlining, and art historical texts that conspicuously exclude people of color. The track becomes a metaphor for movement within predetermined constraints, where speed, effort, and participation do not ensure equity. Here, power is not only enacted, it is engineered in advance, shaping outcomes before the race begins.

In Whipped the sculptural artwork brings power into the body and into lived memory, assembling a whip alongside a Hot Wheels racetrack, ruler, belt, switch, and electrical cord. These objects, drawn from domestic and cultural contexts, carry embedded histories of discipline, labor, and control, expanding the term “whip” across multiple registers, from punishment to velocity to ownership. Read in relation to the paintings and The Rigged Race structure, the sculpture situates power within both the intimate and the systemic, tracing how authority is internalized, normalized, and reproduced across generations. Across the collection, material becomes a site of inscription, holding the residue of lived experience while insisting on a more rigorous reading of power as something simultaneously exercised, inherited, designed, and too often overlooked.