Short Bio

I consider myself an abstract expressionist artist. Currently an Associate Professor of Visual Art in the Department of Fine and Performing Art at Fayetteville State University and the director of the Rosenthal Art Gallery at the university. I am an exhibition curator, arts administrator, founder of the Ellington-White Contemporary Art Gallery in downtown Fayetteville.  Originally from Detroit, Michigan, I have lived with my family in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

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My visual practice involves a continued investigation in the art making processes of painting, drawing and mixed media collage. The works celebrate life, family histories and tributes to artists I admire. I continue to express certain social realities concerning the world around me, while exploring aesthetic qualities of being black in America and addressing the literal ideas of contemporary blackness in abstraction. Elements from African sculptural art, designs, Adinkra symbols and fabric motifs still act as a catalyst to bring forth the artistic voice in my work, as a nonrepresentational artist.

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The works that I’ve created during the past two decades have evolved to contain a variety of material substances and collage elements. Sticks, plaster, textures of gesso and paint, have built up surface textures to develop tension between the materials, the images and visual message.  Painting with thick gobs of paint on paper or canvas, the symbols in the work and their literal meanings became more abstracted over time.