RECENT PAINTINGS
The Indigo Suites were developed in response to the history of the Garner Historic District as an old indigo Mill.
As each piece juxtaposes seemingly disparate cultural references and textures, the work also weaves personal histories with markers from The Caribbean and American cultures, generating a complex narrative for the viewer to decipher. The pieces rethink iconic images using the self-taught art and vernacular language of the Caribbean. They are a gesture that aims to reclaim and re-context iconic images within the post-colonial history of the Americas. For example, the blue jeans, boots, and straw hats that are recurrent images in the paintings can be read equally as iconic cultural markers that belong to the American cowboys or as the sacred attributes of Zaka, the deity of agriculture in Haitian Vodou: a New World archetype. The duality and ambiguity leave viewers to ponder how they construct meaning.
As each piece juxtaposes seemingly disparate cultural references and textures, the work also weaves personal histories with markers from The Caribbean and American cultures, generating a complex narrative for the viewer to decipher. The pieces rethink iconic images using the self-taught art and vernacular language of the Caribbean. They are a gesture that aims to reclaim and re-context iconic images within the post-colonial history of the Americas. For example, the blue jeans, boots, and straw hats that are recurrent images in the paintings can be read equally as iconic cultural markers that belong to the American cowboys or as the sacred attributes of Zaka, the deity of agriculture in Haitian Vodou: a New World archetype. The duality and ambiguity leave viewers to ponder how they construct meaning.
