THE WARRIORS WITHIN COLLECTIVE

This image is about a journey of transformation from Maiden to all-seeing Mother, or the Life/Death/Life Cycle of being, of manifestation, of transcendence. The thread of life, that which links this world to the other world and all beings, links consciousness to the thread of one's soul and to one's body ...

This piece is actually a self-portrait and is a visual representation of the battle that I sometimes go through in dealing with social anxiety, having to compose myself on the outside while screaming on the inside to get out of some of the environments that may make me feel uncomfortable. This has also reached a broader meaning when it comes to living as a black person in America, especially in the wake of our current social climate. We all have to go about our days and carry on but inside we are all frustrated and angry about what is happening and has continued to happen to our people of color.

My work is inspired by patterns and my passion for painting. When I body paint, I am capturing a certain energy and bringing it to life.

I hold a lot of creative intuition that lets me paint freely and express my vision. Strength, beauty, passion, and sacred femininity are all key characteristics I try to capture with my work. The beauty lies in the models, the paint, and their spirit. 

The Hatchling series was a project that ultimately took over a year to come to fruition. In part this was due to prop creation; the egg featured in the series was created from scratch, fashioned from chicken wire, cardboard, and paper mâche. However, I first conjured the idea for the series during a time in my life that was marked by significant trauma and loss....

 This digital painting shows the woman with her true sense of sanctuary within a color field that makes her glow...

 These are photo-levitations, all taken in real-time. Everything you see in the picture was in the frame during the shooting. The backgrounds...

My self-portraits were made over many years as part of an ongoing self-portrait project examining the space, both physical and spiritual, I hold and navigate as a woman... 

 By being womb carriers, we are blessed with the sacred ability to create new life from scratch. Whether we chose to or not, or in aligned health to do so or not - that's another story - but the divine fact is...

The female portrait is used as symbolic imagery to represent the tribulations that women of color face throughout their lives. Some of the women in my portraits hold a look of annoyance or they maintain a calm facial expression. Though it may seem humorous to viewers, there are real traumatic experiences that black and brown women face regarding daily microaggressions....

Though I show myself in portraits of other women, as in the mirror, it often is helpful for my models because their subconscious reflections come out and take their place in the photographs we make...

 After my child was born, I lost myself in the initiation of motherhood. Initiations generally mean that you are presented with a set of challenges that if you overcome them, you are reborn into a new role/self. I looked around for inspiration and symbolism to inspire me while trying to redefine my new self. Motherhood can be indescribably hard...

For women, beauty cannot disappear, it is multifaceted and only facets change with age, but a woman is born already beautiful. I really love comparing women with flowers, since you will never find the same rose or tulip... 

 You don’t search for something you already have. 

You cannot be who you truly are until you can remember, what you already know. Upon the remembering, the ancestors will be able to intervene in all the good ways they can.  That includes helping you with all the things you cannot know about until you have allowed yourself to be swallowed in the awakening of remembering, your wildish sacred nature, a  woman. The wild woman is an endangered species, and more necessary now than ever.  Remembering means...

 My surrealist language is free from reason and it takes the photographic medium out of its conventional objective role, offering bizarre realities that often invite interpretation. With visual delicacy, dreamy atmosphere, and disturbing charge as ingredients, I distort and bend the idea of beauty, fusing it with a sense of the grotesque....

 As the rocks are washed, a little more is shown to us. The women before us have taken the harshest waves and we can see the lines, we can see the way, now to go the way with compassion and trust. This is the present woman’s healing. To deepen the lines of love for future women. 

Whilst we carry many forms of passed-down energy in our present adult lives, we are born worthy, ready,  full of creation and magic...

Is the thing that you’ve been avoiding, gone? Or is it just staying where it is?

You will find yourself answering these questions without any doubt, that it stays.

Because problems come to our life for us to solve them,

It is meant to build us stronger and wiser.

How long have we been hiding? Months maybe years?

It is time for us to embrace it and conquer it....

These are all self-portraits. I chose to portray myself in the images as I am often told I cannot do it all and I have to choose between the businesswoman, the designer, and the model. In fact, I can do it all, I am a strong powerful woman who can turn her hand to anything...

My name is twilight. My name is haze. My name is sun in September. My name is dew on the grass in the early morning. My name is nothing and my name is everything. Combinations of reflections and light touches of something you can never reach...

 In the series of pictures "Hostile of life" I would like to depict human failure, the expansion of nature and our earth, as well as the fragility, fears, and vulnerability of humanity. We should all be more aware of ourselves and our nature...

I see ideas for my work everywhere - in plants, in a chandelier, in a mannequin seen in a movie, in paintings and random textures, and, of course, in the theater and the works of other masters. It is important for me...

 As the world undergoes this massive transformation, it is important that we dive deep into who we are, the warriors within us (holding our greatest powers), and the creative resources that help us navigate them. ..