in the shoal, pt. 1 Painting

This piece titled “in the shoal, pt. 1” is an exploration in conveying meaning through abstraction. I find I'm continually navigating my relationship to mark making and determining how my moves across the page invoke feeling(s). The green in this piece for me finds root in the history of The Negro Motorist Green-Book by Victor H. Green published from 1936-1966 as a guide to spaces that served Black patrons navigating safe travel throughout the U.S during Jim Crow. For this reason, the emerald green you see here (and the greens seen throughout the collection) have taken on layers of meaning within my work. The way the marks travel and skip across this piece speak to creatively concealed and untraceable methods of movement and communication necessary for safe travel then- and now- by people of color. Within these movements, there is also a joy and freedom reflected. The kind of joy you feel when no one is watching, when you are navigating in realms outside of someone's gaze or conception -- where you can laugh heartily, shout loudly, speak freely, rest quietly, and dance fully. My works are in constant conversations with these carved out spaces of freedom, acknowledging constraints while loving the ‘always already’ expression of freedom within them.