Eve Under Construction is a wood assemblage that presents the Black female form as layered, evolving, and intentionally unfinished. Composed of vibrantly colored wood fragments, the figure is visibly held together by construction clips—tools that expose the making rather than conceal it. Each body part carries its own texture, rhythm, and history, suggesting identity as something assembled through experience rather than born whole. The clips act as both restraint and support, acknowledging the tension between vulnerability and strength, fragmentation and wholeness. This work embraces becoming over completion, honoring a body—and a self—continuously shaped, revealed, and reclaimed in plain sight.

Between Fluttering is a collaged, fabric-layered work that portrays a woman as a butterfly reflecting in a moment of necessary pause. Composed of richly patterned layered ankara fabric and paint,  the figure rests between acts of pollinating—between the labor of nurturing, creating, and pouring into others. Her stillness is not weakness, but wisdom. The wings, heavy with color and history, hold the evidence of movement and service, while the body claims rest as an essential part of survival. This piece honors the quiet spaces between giving, recognizing rest as both resistance and renewal—a moment where becoming is allowed to breathe before taking flight again.

Dyptych 48x120 mixed media

And Still I Rise depicts a Black male figure rendered as an angelic presence, radiant in color and force, with wings that echo the fire and rebirth of a phoenix rather than the traditional white feathered angel wings. White chalk marks surround the figure as a quiet but permanent residue—symbols of what remains marking violence, after attempts at erasure, after crushing humiliation and deliberate destruction. Chalk is fragile, easily brushed away, yet it always leaves a trace, just as memory and truth do. The figure stands not untouched, but undefeated. His ascent is collective, carrying the weight of Black culture that continues to rise despite generations of harm meant to silence it. This work insists that survival itself is sacred, and that even when the world tries to erase Black life, the spirit remembers how to rise—again and again.

Le Griot, 48x60, mixed media

Le Griot portrays an elder Black woman as a living vessel of memory, spirit, and story. Her silvered hair unfolds in layered, vibrant patterns—each strand echoing the complexity of a life lived, lessons carried, and histories preserved. She cradles a spiritual black rabbit, a symbol of intuition, protection, and quiet wisdom, held close like a sacred truth passed hand to hand. Birds, flowers, and ancestral motifs move through the composition, suggesting stories in motion—spoken, remembered, and still becoming. As a griot, she does not merely recall the past; she animates it, holding cultural knowledge with care and tenderness. This work honors Black women elders as keepers of lineage, reminding us that survival, joy, and imagination are all forms of inheritance.

StoryTeller 48x60, mixed media fabric and paint

StoryTeller reflects the elder Black man as a bearer of wisdom, memory, and lived truth. His beard unfolds in layered, vibrant patterns, mirroring the richness and complexity of the life he has lived and the stories he carries. Resting on his shoulder is a wise owl—an emblem of insight, protection, and quiet knowing—present not as an accessory, but as a companion shaped by shared time. The radiance surrounding him suggests a life illuminated by experience rather than spectacle. This work celebrates Black elders as living archives, reminding us that stories are not simply told, but embodied—woven through the body, the voice, and the steady presence of those who have endured, observed, and remembered. The viewer is invited to experience story through repeated layers of carefully cut shapes from initial complete fabrics, creating new complex stories. 

Fire and Ice, mixed media wood  52x94

Fire and Ice is a mixed-media wood collage that explores the beauty and necessity of duality. Through bold color contrasts, layered forms, and opposing textures, the piece embodies the tension and harmony between heat and cool, motion and stillness, intensity and restraint. The face emerges as a meeting point—where fire’s passion and ice’s clarity coexist rather than compete. Flowing hair waves radiate outward like energy in motion, suggesting that balance is not static but constantly negotiated. Rooted in the principle of yin and yang, this work honors contradiction as essential, revealing that wholeness is formed not by choosing one force over the other, but by allowing both to exist in dynamic relationship.

Blow Out is a mixed-media wood collage that celebrates Black womanhood as radiant, self-defined, and unapologetically visible. The figure glows with an inner aura, her presence illuminated from within rather than imposed from outside. Her afro expands boldly, layered with color and movement, anchored by a traditional Black power pick—an enduring symbol of resistance, cultural pride, and self-determination. In this context, a “blow out” is not merely a hairstyle, but an act of expansion: space taken, energy released, history carried forward. Framed by ornament and saturated color, she smiles with knowing joy, embodying liberation as lived experience. The work honors hair as both crown and archive—a site where memory, power, and light converge.

Sweet Melon Girl 41x36 mixed media wood collage

This mixed-media wood assemblage depicts a young Black girl eating watermelon—an image layered with contradiction, memory, and meaning. Historically, watermelon has been weaponized as a stereotype used to ridicule and diminish Black people. Yet this same fruit also carries a deeper truth: it was once a source of nourishment, land ownership, and financial self-sustainability for formerly enslaved Black communities who grew, sold, and profited from it on their own terms.

By centering her in this simple but carefully assembled joyful moment, I confront the discomfort surrounding this association while reclaiming its complexity. Her posture is tender and unguarded, free from performance or apology. Through layered wood, texture, and color, I invite viewers to sit with both the harm of imposed narratives and the power of redefinition. This work reflects how beauty, pleasure, and survival can coexist with history—and how reclamation begins when agency is returned to the subject herself.

Thinking, mixed media 52x22 wood collage

Thinking is a multilayered mixed-media wood collage that reflects my ongoing exploration of portraiture as an interior experience rather than a fixed likeness. I construct faces through stacked shapes, carved lines, and intersecting color to suggest thought as something lived and layered—nonlinear, intuitive, and deeply personal. The gaze in this work is not meant to be deciphered, but encountered, holding space for reflection rather than explanation. Through fragmentation and reassembly, I explore how identity forms beneath the surface, shaped by memory, emotion, and perception moving simultaneously. 

ON 45x42, mixed media wood collage

ON explores the fragile negotiation of transparency within intimate connection. Built from multilayered wood and transparent plexiglass acrylic, the piece is activated by light. Openings in the wood and the clear sections of acrylic allow light to pass through, casting shadows and illumination that shift with the viewer’s position—making visibility an ever-changing experience rather than a fixed state.

The overlapping faces suggest closeness without erasure. Light moving through the layers becomes a metaphor for love itself: what is shared, what is revealed, and what remains partially held back. Transparency here is not simplicity, but intention—the willingness to let light in while honoring the complexity each person carries. ON reflects the courage it takes for two people, transparent in love, to remain open and illuminated together.

Sound of Color is a celebration of synesthesia—where sound is felt, color is heard, and emotion moves through the body like music. This multilayered wood collage builds a face composed of rhythm, texture, and vibration, with headphones acting as a portal inward. Each layer functions like a track in a song, stacked and synced to create harmony through complexity.

Color becomes sound language here—warm tones hum, cool hues resonate, and patterns pulse like basslines and melodies.

Between This Morning and Last Night 42x42, mixed media wood collage

Between This Morning and Last Night explores the quiet tension and harmony that exist in transition. The multilayered wood collage overlaps the sun and moon, referencing yin and yang as inseparable forces—light and shadow, action and rest, becoming and remembering. Rather than opposing one another, these elements coexist, folded into a single moment suspended between time.

The layered construction reflects how identity and experience are built: not in absolutes, but in gradients. Edges meet, blur, and hold space for both warmth and coolness, clarity and mystery. This work honors the in-between—the place where balance is negotiated, where yesterday and tomorrow touch, and where wholeness is formed through contrast.

Future Minded, mixed media wood collage, 43x52

Future Minded depicts a woman absorbed in forward thought, poised between presence and possibility. Built from layered wood, color, and symbol, the collage reflects the nonlinear nature of imagining what comes next. Her quiet daydream suggests that the future is not distant, but already forming within—shaped by memory, intention, and belief with thoughts of love, of God, of family.

Balanced Equation 51x36 mixed media wood collage

Balanced Equation explores the complexity of connection through a multilayered, color-rich wood collage of a male and female face arranged in a yin-yang formation. Facing one another, the figures embody polarity and partnership—difference held in balance rather than opposition. Painted layers and fabric introduce texture and depth, reflecting the emotional and spiritual dimensions that shape a relationship.

While love and peace are on the heads of the opposing faces, I wished it to move through the composition as grounding forces, reminding us that harmony is not the absence of contrast, but the willingness to hold duality with care. This work honors complexity as necessary, and balance as an active, ongoing exchange.

It’s Complicated examines the layered realities of relationships—where love, tension, vulnerability, and repair coexist. The familiar phrase signals what is often left unsaid: emotional knots, contradictions, and unseen labor that complicate connection without negating its beauty.

Constructed as a multilayered wood collage, the work mirrors the architecture of intimacy itself. Materials are broken, torn, hidden, layered, and reassembled, reflecting both the fragility and resilience required to sustain union. Hands, hearts, symbols, and gestures overlap to suggest communication, miscommunication, and the ongoing negotiation of balance.

Color chemistry and material tension hold the composition together, affirming that even in fracture, wholeness remains possible. It’s Complicated invites dialogue around self-love, soul ties, life and loss, and the pursuit of harmony—honoring complexity not as failure, but as proof of depth.

Saturday Afternoon , 48x60 mixed media (ankara fabric paint)

Saturday Afternoon is an exploration of portraiture as a site of presence rather than performance. The woman is seated, layered color, pattern, and gesture, and fabulously adorned-and just chillin' on a Saturday afternoon. Must one have a place to go in order to dress up?

Birds and textiles move through the composition as symbols of spirit, freedom, continuity, and self-possession. This work treats leisure as a radical and intimate act, positioning portraiture as a space where rest, embodiment, and visibility coexist without demand.

Deep Down Inside is a mixed media multilayered work I created to give viewer a glimpse at this black woman's interior life. In this piece, the face functions as a threshold—its translucent layers allowing the viewer to see beyond the surface and into the mind. Inside her head, a figure crouches, representing the parts of self that are protected, restrained, or still becoming. Through transparency, depth, and fragmentation, I explore how memory, emotion, and survival live beneath what is shown to the world. This work reflects the tension I see between outer presentation and inner reality, honoring interiority as a sacred space where vulnerability, resilience, and becoming coexist

She is a mixed media painting that depicts a black woman-her body becomes a patchwork of lived experience, where nothing is discarded and everything contributes to wholeness. Color functions as language here: bold, complex, unapologetic. The woman stands grounded and luminous, not simplified or singular, but powerful in her many parts. This work reflects how I see Black women—as multifaceted, resilient, and beautifully assembled through care, labor, and intention.

Don’t Touch My Hair is my declaration of boundary, complexity, and becoming. From a distance, my hair appears colorful, expressive, and whole. But when you come closer, it reveals itself as a dense archive—filled with symbols, memories, humor, grief, politics, faith, joy, and contradiction. These elements shape me, inform me, and move with me, yet none of them alone define who I am.

This work is about proximity and permission. You may feel curious. You may want to touch. But closeness is earned, not assumed—and even when invited, it requires care. I am not an object to be consumed or decoded for comfort. My identity is not public property.

This piece will never be finished, because I am not finished. Like my hair, I continue to grow, shed, layer, and transform. What you see depends on how closely you look and how willing you are to sit with complexity. My hair becomes both boundary and archive—a living record that resists simplification, demands respect, and remains unapologetically my own.