I work in transfiguration, the art of becoming and of being undone. Bodies, objects, and histories: consumed, discarded, then reconstituted as something palatable, softer, and clean. My practice metabolizes labor, leisure, and capital—not as subject matter, but rather as raw material, as process and evidence. Painting, performance, video, and sculpture—these are just delivery systems; the real work happens in the residue.

Paper towels, engineered to erase, to disappear on contact, are a luxury of disposability. In my hands, however, they refuse; they are dyed, bleached, printed, and chemically sealed, holding onto their stains, clinging to their failures. Fragile and industrial, saturated and unsinkable, they are a mess that never resolves, a joke that keeps telling itself.

Get Well Soon, my latest body of work, started there as a punchline, a diagnosis, a prognosis, because to be an emerging artist, to be Black, to be queer, to be sick, is to be an affliction. The titular phrase, stamped on balloons, tacked onto emails—arrives with expectations: heal, progress, return. But what if you don’t? What if you can’t? What if the cure was never meant for you?

The paper towels remain, stained and waiting.