When I go to museums, I find myself growing bored and disinterested. It’s not because of the art of itself but of the subjects themselves. I grow bored of the Eurocentric focus that many museums have. The greatness of my people isn’t confined to the small rooms dedicated to Ancient Egypt or any other minority room. As a child, I had a very warped self-image because I had very few characters or contemporary figures to look up to. We all have the most optimal version of ourselves in our mind. As a child, the version of my mental self was not even an actual version of me. It had instead been replaced with this skinny white girl with stick straight hair. As I grew older and continued to navigate through life, I realized that I was not the only black kid who went through this. One of my greatest influences in my art work, was ancestry, superheroes, and the universe at large. With my art work, I want to manifest both the power and vulnerability of black people as a whole all while inspiring younger children to explore their own identity and magic. |