My work revolves around narratives that reflect nostalgia and black culture. Each painting serves as a repository preserving our existence. The combination of color and scale helps figures appear regal, commanding of attention. I want viewers to make connections with my portraits as if they knew the figures personally. By applying blues, purples, and reds as undertones for skin color, or painting the eyelids a bright color to accentuate a particular mood, I’m conveying a sense of presence and diversity found within black people. Also, the application of color to certain facial features confronts racist caricatures of the past. I want to color, between the lines, a new understanding of blackness in terms of a black aesthetic, one of vitality steeped in humanity and dignity.