I was born in Cambridge in 2000 as the daughter of a Jamaican father and Barbadian mother. My work has always been a way of exploring my identity and cultural heritage, using various mediums but specialising in oil portraiture. My time at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL helped refine my craft and deepened my love for using painting as a way to visually communicate elements of the Black experience.

I use my work as means of activism but also personal healing, and I aim for my work to do the same to those who view it. I reject the victimisation of Black people and through creating I hope to push for self-determination.

I use my work to navigate the Black identity through the lens of trauma, racism, and colonialism. Exploring themes such as afro-pessimism and prejudice, I reference their direct connection to colonisation, utilising narrative to shed light on the Black experience. I allow the viewer to search for meaning, through symbols and loaded imagery, enabling interrogation and connection with the work.

Empathy and sensitivity are at the core of my practice, using colour and light to convey emotional turmoil. Taking inspiration from the theories of Frantz Fanon in his books ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ and ‘Black Skin, White Masks’, I primarily focus on the socially normalised preconception to associate ‘black’ with ‘wrong’.  I aim to redefine the portrayal of black people through the use of oil painting, a medium traditionally reserved to perpetuate western ideals. Extending further than oil portraiture, I use photography, textiles and video to build upon the same thematic foundations, investigating further into memory, grief and the relationship with identity. Within recent months, the research aspect of my process has become centralised on post-colonial rage and how the injustices from slavery to present day manifest through emotions, interactions and opinions.

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