WEBVTT 00:00:01.533 --> 00:00:04.467 I believe there is beauty 00:00:04.467 --> 00:00:08.284 in hearing the voices of people who haven't been heard. 00:00:08.445 --> 00:00:10.743 [Drawing the Blinds, 2014] 00:00:10.743 --> 00:00:13.448 [The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk III 2014)] 00:00:13.448 --> 00:00:16.174 [Beneath an Unforgiving Sun (from a Tropical Space), 2020] 00:00:16.174 --> 00:00:17.279 That's a complex idea 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.099 because the things that must be said 00:00:20.099 --> 00:00:24.049 are not always lovely, 00:00:24.049 --> 00:00:26.233 but somehow, 00:00:26.233 --> 00:00:28.964 if they're reflective of truth, 00:00:28.964 --> 00:00:33.833 I think fundamentally that makes them beautiful. 00:00:35.650 --> 00:00:39.868 (Music) 00:00:41.900 --> 00:00:46.183 There's the aesthetic beauty of the work 00:00:46.183 --> 00:00:50.567 that in some cases functions as more of a Trojan horse. 00:00:50.851 --> 00:00:57.018 It allows one to open their hearts to difficult conversations. 00:00:58.001 --> 00:01:03.585 Maybe you feel attracted to the beauty, 00:01:03.585 --> 00:01:07.868 and while compelled by the technique, 00:01:07.868 --> 00:01:09.052 the color, 00:01:09.052 --> 00:01:11.271 the form or composition, 00:01:11.271 --> 00:01:13.485 maybe the difficult conversation sneaks up. 00:01:13.485 --> 00:01:16.570 [Billy Lee & Ona Judge Portraits in Tar, 2016] 00:01:16.570 --> 00:01:19.699 I really taught myself how to paint 00:01:19.699 --> 00:01:22.959 by spending time at museums 00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:26.443 and looking at the people that -- 00:01:26.443 --> 00:01:30.425 the artists, rather, that I was told were the masters. 00:01:31.219 --> 00:01:33.573 Looking at the Rembrandts, 00:01:33.573 --> 00:01:35.124 Renoir, 00:01:35.124 --> 00:01:36.431 Manet, 00:01:36.431 --> 00:01:38.014 it becomes quite obvious 00:01:38.014 --> 00:01:41.757 that if I'm going to learn how to paint a self-portrait 00:01:41.757 --> 00:01:44.070 by studing those people, 00:01:44.070 --> 00:01:45.995 I'm going to be challenged 00:01:45.995 --> 00:01:49.440 when it comes to mixing my skin 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:52.465 or mixing the skin of those people in my family. 00:01:53.026 --> 00:01:57.113 There's literally formulas written down historically 00:01:57.113 --> 00:02:00.011 to tell me how to paint white skin -- 00:02:00.011 --> 00:02:02.743 what colors I should use for the underpainting, 00:02:02.743 --> 00:02:06.060 what colors I should use for the impasto highlights. 00:02:06.377 --> 00:02:09.217 That doesn't really exist for dark skin. 00:02:09.878 --> 00:02:11.112 It's not a thing. 00:02:11.312 --> 00:02:13.778 It's not a thing because 00:02:13.778 --> 00:02:17.896 the reality is our skin wasn't considered beautiful. 00:02:19.412 --> 00:02:20.278 The picture, 00:02:20.278 --> 00:02:24.928 the world that is represented in the history of paintings 00:02:24.928 --> 00:02:26.945 doesn't reflect me. 00:02:27.312 --> 00:02:32.380 It doesn't reflect the things that I value in that way, 00:02:32.380 --> 00:02:36.313 and that's the conflict that I struggle with so frequently -- 00:02:36.313 --> 00:02:40.998 is I love the technique of these paintings, 00:02:40.998 --> 00:02:43.712 I have learned from the technique of these paintings, 00:02:43.712 --> 00:02:49.082 and yet I know that they have no concern for me. 00:02:50.132 --> 00:02:53.647 And so there are so many of us 00:02:53.647 --> 00:02:55.897 who are amending this history 00:02:55.897 --> 00:02:58.470 in order to simply say we were there. 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:02.718 Because you couldn't see doesn't mean we weren't there. 00:03:03.115 --> 00:03:04.349 We have been there. 00:03:04.514 --> 00:03:05.849 We have been here. 00:03:06.481 --> 00:03:12.149 We've continued to be seen as not beautiful, 00:03:12.149 --> 00:03:13.999 but we are, 00:03:13.999 --> 00:03:15.483 and we are here. 00:03:16.132 --> 00:03:20.116 So many of the things that I make 00:03:20.116 --> 00:03:24.670 end up as maybe futile attempts to reinforce that idea. 00:03:24.670 --> 00:03:27.351 [Drawing the Blinds, 2014] 00:03:27.351 --> 00:03:30.224 [Seeing Through Time, 2018] 00:03:30.224 --> 00:03:36.163 Even though I've had the Western training, 00:03:36.163 --> 00:03:39.978 my eye is still drawn to the folks who look like me. 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:42.778 And so sometimes in my work, 00:03:42.778 --> 00:03:48.613 I have used strategies like whiting out the rest of the composition 00:03:48.613 --> 00:03:53.494 in order to focus on the character who may go unseen otherwise. 00:03:54.497 --> 00:03:59.895 I have cut out other figures from the painting, 00:03:59.895 --> 00:04:02.629 one, to either emphasize their absence, 00:04:02.629 --> 00:04:07.747 or two, to get you to focus on the other folks in the composition. 00:04:07.747 --> 00:04:10.251 [Intravenous (From a Tropical Space), 2020] 00:04:10.505 --> 00:04:15.494 So The Jerome Project aesthetically draws on hundreds of years 00:04:15.494 --> 00:04:19.259 of religious icon painting. 00:04:19.610 --> 00:04:21.362 A kind of aesthetic structure 00:04:21.362 --> 00:04:28.078 that was reserved for the church, 00:04:28.078 --> 00:04:29.752 reserved for saints. 00:04:33.382 --> 00:04:37.997 It's a project that is an exploration of the criminal justice system. 00:04:39.663 --> 00:04:43.847 Not asking the question are these people innocent or guilty, 00:04:43.847 --> 00:04:48.596 but more, is this the way that we should deal with our citizens. 00:04:49.731 --> 00:04:51.697 I started a body of work 00:04:51.697 --> 00:04:54.736 because after being separated from my father 00:04:54.736 --> 00:04:57.213 for almost 15 years, 00:04:57.213 --> 00:05:00.048 I reconnected with my father 00:05:00.048 --> 00:05:06.130 and I really didn't know how to make a place for him 00:05:06.130 --> 00:05:07.400 in my life. 00:05:07.615 --> 00:05:10.881 As with most things I don't understand, 00:05:10.881 --> 00:05:12.881 I work them out in the studio. 00:05:13.715 --> 00:05:17.398 And so I just started making these portraits of mugshots, 00:05:17.398 --> 00:05:21.415 starting because I did a Google search for my father 00:05:21.415 --> 00:05:24.449 just wondering what had happened over this 15 year period. 00:05:24.648 --> 00:05:25.833 Where had he gone? 00:05:26.032 --> 00:05:27.282 And I found his mugshot, 00:05:27.282 --> 00:05:29.300 which of course was of no surprise, 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:31.849 but I found in that first search, 00:05:31.849 --> 00:05:36.534 97 other Black men with exactly the same first and last name 00:05:36.534 --> 00:05:38.002 and I found their mugshots, 00:05:38.002 --> 00:05:40.417 and that was a surprise. 00:05:40.618 --> 00:05:42.667 And not knowing what to do, 00:05:42.667 --> 00:05:44.466 I just started painting them. 00:05:45.317 --> 00:05:48.718 Initially, the tar was a formula to allow me 00:05:48.718 --> 00:05:53.806 to figure out how much of these men's life had been lost to incarceration, 00:05:53.806 --> 00:05:56.085 but I gave up that, 00:05:56.085 --> 00:06:00.584 and the tar became far more symbolic as I continued, 00:06:00.584 --> 00:06:01.634 because what I realized 00:06:01.634 --> 00:06:05.501 is the amount of time that you spend incarcerated is just the beginning 00:06:05.501 --> 00:06:08.369 of how long it's going to impact that rest of your life. 00:06:08.586 --> 00:06:11.751 So in terms of beauty within that context, 00:06:11.751 --> 00:06:16.852 I know from my friend's family, 00:06:16.852 --> 00:06:19.037 who have been incarcerated, 00:06:19.037 --> 00:06:21.369 who are currently incarcerated, 00:06:21.369 --> 00:06:23.170 folks want to be remembered. 00:06:23.869 --> 00:06:25.803 Folks want to be seen. 00:06:26.403 --> 00:06:29.687 We put people away for a long time, 00:06:29.687 --> 00:06:30.991 in some cases, 00:06:30.991 --> 00:06:33.220 for that one worst thing that they've done. 00:06:33.386 --> 00:06:35.338 So to a degree, 00:06:35.338 --> 00:06:39.037 it's a way of just saying ... 00:06:39.037 --> 00:06:40.222 I see you. 00:06:40.554 --> 00:06:41.840 We see you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a gesture, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is beautiful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the painting "Behind the Myth of Benevolence," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there's almost this curtain of Thomas Jefferson painted and pulled back 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to reveal a Black woman who's hidden. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This Black woman is at once Sally Mae Hemings, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but she's also every other Black woman who was on that plantation, Monticello, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and all the rest of them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The one thing we do know about Thomas Jefferson 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that he believed in liberty. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Maybe more strongly than anyone who's ever written about it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if we know that to be true, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if we believe that to be true, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then the only benevolent thing to do in that context 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would be to extend that liberty. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so in this body of work, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I use two separate paintings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that are forced together on top of one another 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to emphasize this tumultuous relationship between Black and white 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in these compositions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so that -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that contradiction, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that devastating reality that's always behind the curtain, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what is happening in race relations in this country, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's what this painting is about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The painting is called "Another Fight for Remembrance." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The title speaks to repitition. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The title speaks to the kind of violence against Black people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by the police 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has happened and continues to happen 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we are now seeing it happen again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The painting is sort of editorialized as a painting about Ferguson. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not not about Ferguson, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it's also not not about Detroit, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's also not not about Minneapolis. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The painting was started because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on a trip to New York 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to see some of my own art 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with my brother, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as we spent hours walking in and out of galleries, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we ended the day by being stopped by an undercover police car 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the middle of the street. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These two police officers with their hands on their guns 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 told us to stop. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They put us up against the wall, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they accused me of stealing art 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 out of a gallery space where I was actually exhibiting art. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And as they stood there with their hands on their weapons, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I asked the police officer what was different about my citizenship 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 than that of all of the other people who were not being disturbed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in that moment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He informed me that they had been following us for two hours, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that they had been getting complaints about Black men -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 two Black men walking in and out of galleries. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That painting is about the reality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it's not a question 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of if this is going to happen again, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's a question of when. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This most recent body of work is called "From a Tropical Space." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This series of paintings is about Black mothers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The series of paintings takes place in a super-saturated, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe surrealist world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not that far from the one we live in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But in this world, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the children of these Black women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are disappearing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What this work is really about is trauma. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The things that Black women and women of color in particular 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in our community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have to struggle through 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in order to set their kids out on the path of life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What's encouraging for me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that this practice of mine has given me the opportunity 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to work with young people in my community. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm quite certain the answers are not in me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but if I'm hopeful at all 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's that they may be in them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 NXTHVN is a project that started about five years ago. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And NXTHVN is a 40,000-square-foot arts incubator in the heart 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the Dixwell neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is a predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It is a neighborhood that has the history of jazz at every corner. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Our neighborhood in many ways has been disinvested in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Schools are struggling to really prepare our population 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the futures ahead of them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know that creativity is an essential asset. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It takes creativity 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to be able to imagine a future 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is so different than the one that is before you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so every artist in our program has a high school studio assistant. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's a high school student coming from the city of New Haven 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who works with them and learns their craft, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 learns their practice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so we've seen the ways in which pointing folks at the power of creativity 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can change them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Beauty is complicated because of how we define it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that beauty and truth 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are intertwined somehow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's something beautiful in truth-telling. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That is -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that as an act, truth-telling, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the myriad ways it manifests. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's beauty in that.