Digital Gallery

My love for art originated as a child watching my mother draw murals on my bedroom wall, scenes of huge teapot sets, and sketches of me. My quilts are done in the style of my grandmother, she was my biggest inspiration for my quilt making. As a child I would watch my grandmother take worn pieces of fabric and hand sew each piece to create beautiful traditional quilts that she would give to each of us.

I have also been influenced by traditional African art. I use quilting, print, and clay to transform digital print photos I have seen. The photos that resonate with me the most are African mothers carrying their children while doing mundane tasks. These pieces show the emotional ties of the mother and child.  My pieces are tactile 3-Dimensional versions of these images unlike the traditional forms I derived them from. My quilts are hand-sewn, and in my quilts, I placed a piece of cloth that I have digitally designed as a signature of my fabric pieces and added a personal touch.

My pieces are colorful, and vibrant to represent the colors seen, and worn in Africa.

I use painted fabric, print and ceramics to translate African stories of motherhood. This art conveys the love mothers all over the world have for their children and shows a literal, and figurative connection. These mothers are separated by distance and culture, but bound by the same feelings and emotions called love.  My pieces express the love I have for my son, and the love my mother has for me shared by the mothers in the diaspora. My own journey of motherhood inspired this series, and I am gratified by being able to express the warmth of a mother’s love.

Usually, therapy is about articulating my feelings and experiences. These experiences, thoughts, might be too overwhelming or painful with everyday dialogue. Art is my therapeutic tool to help me cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It has given me creative means of dealing with anxiety. It allows me to use a different language to express myself and widen my scope of communication. Art conveys my inner voice and inspirations.

Influences of my early memories of my St. Lucian ancestry, past generations, and nature, are seen in my artwork. As long as I remembered, art has always been part of life. Handcrafting was generational artistry used to create everyday items found around the home — these items valued for their aesthetic and practical purpose. My grandmother had a mystical connection to nature; she could transform plain soil into something of beauty. The love and gratitude of the natural beauty, which surrounds us, was gifted from her to me. I create batiks and mostly wheel-thrown practical pieces. The beauty of pottery and textile is that I get to work with clay and cotton that are from the earth. The natural calming vibration of clay and the intricate designs in textiles reduces stress and allows me to reconnect to what it means to be alive. I blend functional household items with nature and transform everyday forms into things of unique beauty. The hand-dyed textiles of batik tell the story of my heritage in each brushstroke and dynamic color selection in my fabric artwork.

These art forms open a whole arena of self-expression. They pave the way for self-discovery that allows me to work on myself in an aspect that would have otherwise remained unknown.

Within the past decade, I’ve witnessed women in the Black community remember how to love themselves, both individually and collectively. We’ve Creating art brings me peace to listen to my own inner feelings. I bring them to life through art. My motivation stems from nature, a source of truth and knowledge beyond the immediate physical world. As nature is deeply sensitive and full of possibility, so are we. My artwork is focused on this consciousness. I am a mixed-media artist working primarily with fibers. I combine experimentation with the structured practice of Japanese Shibori dyeing. Along with dyed cotton, I repurpose old fabrics I find, incorporating printmaking, crochet, sewing, quilting, and sometimes natural materials.

I build images that are full of color and diverse feelings. One quilted piece, “Unconditional Connection” exemplifies the beautiful coexistence of people and the natural world that can and should be allowed to thrive. The figures illustrate peace and mutuality with one another and the Earth. Often my artwork includes figures which fit with their environment, creating a sense of reverence between all beings within.

Ever since I was a child, I loved looking for beautiful plants and flowers around me. I wanted to learn more about the symbolic meaning behind them and even aimed to study botany. When I see these flowers again as an adult, I am brought back to these moments in my life again. The motivation behind my art emerges from these memories and become a record to reminisce on.

My works express the analogy of our growth and development in our lives through the use of flowers. The images were from albums collected over the years that feature snapshots of significant moments in my life. The scenes feature flowers that were present during that moment and reflect the feeling of nostalgia. This timeline of memories is composed of evolution and markers to look back on while adding to my album of life. I commemorate and relive these instances through the use of Adobe Illustrator, inspired by the animations I watched as a child, and recreate them into digital paintings. I find it emotionally moving to transform physical photographs of my childhood into stylized artworks that are so personal to me. These images evoke fond memories and reflect upon my growth and to anticipate the next significant moment in life.

Since childhood, I’ve loved telling stories. I used to carry a journal and a sketchbook with me everywhere I went. I continue to create to inspire myself, as well as others. I draw from past experiences and emotions and explore fantasies that allow the mind to wander and relax. The Eternal Princess is one of the fantasy stories I’ve explored. Senara is a young girl searching for a sense of self and belonging, even in the face of deception and the supernatural.

I communicate this theme through illustrations as well as photography about reflection and abstraction. I invite everyone to journey with Senara and be swept away from reality.

I found myself captivated when reading fiction stories and comics. I would hang onto every word, design of the character, and details of the created world. The stories always pulled me in and I longed to create my characters, so I did. I took reference from the stories I read, my religious background, and reinvented the story of Eve to become a story of choice. What if given the chance Eve decided to seal humanity’s fate, and choose death every time.

When creating the story of Eve I decided to use Photoshop. I kept the main portion of the character simple so as not to distract the viewer. By adding details in other places it highlights the emotions behind her choice. I created the beginning of a world of, “what if’s” what if humanity just can’t get it right. I created this world to be on the cusp of multiple endings, but always resulting in terminal errors.

Again. Again. Again. She repeats the same mistake over, and over. When will she learn? She has the chance to change our future but she keeps repeating her mistake. Again. Again. Again. Are her actions purposeful? She holds our future, but will she make the right choice? Each decision she re-sets the timeline, having to choose all over again. As she holds the skull she smiles triumphantly as if she just won the world. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s okay with her choices. The world resets.