Working with Mixed Media 

My work is derived from traditional African sensibilities and directed toward contemporary African American concerns, both social and political. The traditional African's world view is based on a sense of oneness with the order of things; which includes his overall approach to life, the systems of relationships to the natural forces and his/her fellow-kind. This central vision is characterized In the objects produced, as an example; the interplay of round and angular shapes suggesting tension. A particular rhythm quality is carried throughout with consistency to its ultimate goal - unity - the wholeness of the work, whether sacred or as a functional object.

Further, this African quality is distinguished by equality of treatment, such as the staccato handling of solid and void. This can also be seen in certain ways of a continuation by the suspension of a beat; i.e., adding an offbeat, or a different element to cancel and affirm that continuation. These objects are formal, intellectually cool but meant to evoke an emotional response.

I see myself as a part of the African Continuum.

In the collages, paintings, assemblages, and sculptures, I create a surface quality by additive processes similar to those used in African sacred ritual experience.  Often in my working methods, I build the surface much the same way as traditional cultures, which is similar to ceremonial rites, by building layers to create a spiritual encounter evoked by emergence in the process of making. Sometimes my work is rough and gritty, full of texture like life where is experience is tactile. My formal training as an artist is European and many aesthetics and conceptual concerns are located there, but my life experience is from the African Diaspora.