In my current series of paintings, I explore the idea of black masculinity and how the black male body becomes flypaper for our projections. My interest is in locating viewers where they are unable to shy away from those very projections. I hope they challenge their assumptions about what they want to see—what it is they desire in relation to the black body. I want the paintings to have tension between sexuality and sensuality, thereby putting grotesque stereotypes into question. I explore this by photographing my subjects in their domestic environments and then turning those images into large-scale, intimate oil paintings.