"A Gentle Unraveling"

Acrylic Paint + Air Brush on Linen
180 x 142 cm

I Wanna Live Outside is a collection of work that explores making space for black men to claim their own healing. By addressing the subjects of race, religion, politics, and access, my work pulls together narratives from the everyday black experience to create new representations of identities for black men to live within. These paintings bring visibility to the vulnerable process of uncovering inter-generational trauma, honoring pain, and discovering self-care to restructure the dominant narratives black males are born into within American society.

Through portraiture, my subjects explore the intersections of narrative identity as an attempt to author an existence outside the borders of societal expectations on black masculinity. As an act of self-actualization through the evolution of identity, my subjects challenge the viewers to redefine the internalization of circumscribed stereotypes of black males in order to move into genuine connection and reflection.