"No More Funny Valentines" Painting

I am a Caribbean-American Artist born and raised in New York City. Through my expressionistic use of line and/or color, I enjoy celebrating the musical, melodramatic, multi-cultural and enigmatic spirit of Carnival in my drawings and paintings. In my work, I seem drawn to characters and scenes that express conditions of longing, nostalgia and grief connected to the desire to carry on and experience pleasure, joy and even ecstatic states. I am quite in awe of the strength of the human spirit! From illustration to portraiture, I focus on expressing character and personality inherent in live models as well as imagined beings engaged in scenes that tell wordless, poetic stories. As a creative writer and visual artist, I often enjoy drawing or painting on small surfaces from 4" x 6" up to 11" x 14" as though I am writing these expressionistic stories. And, indeed there is such a 'fine line' between drawing, painting and writing.

I am as inspired by Rembrandt, Matisse, Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, George Grosz, John Singer Sargent, Edgar Degas, Remedios Varo, Winsor Mckay, Jackie Ormes, Laura James, as I am many literary influences such as Zora Neale Hurston, Jamaica Kincaid, Jean Toomer, Bruno Schulz, Jean Rhys, Pablo Neruda.