Artist Statement
My intradisciplinary practice addresses and intimates the intricacies within Black and people of color immigrant communities that perform most of today’s domestic work. My work is grounded in principles of painting, sculpture, and drawing featuring diverse representations of Black immigrant women who are my central subjects.
I tell stories of women’s labor, often unseen and untold that play an integral role in the function of our society. Essential participants in America’s domestic workforce. My practice establishes formal and intuitive processes that use interdisciplinary techniques to stitch together intersecting themes with personal narratives. I explore my family and my socialization to do care work in relation to the social complexity regarding class, gender, citizenship, commodification, economic inequity, and labor rights.
The reappropriation and manipulation of materials used destabilize its power and play with the contradiction of mammy stereotypes. My materials include used baby clothes that belonged to the children my mother cared for, my clothes, my sister's, and my mother's. Repurposing these baby clothes is a representational resistance to the power structure that is inherent to care work. This inclusion in my practice guides me along with conversations with my mother and other women who are working in such employment.
