1
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I believe there is beauty

2
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in hearing the voices of people
who haven't been heard.

3
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["Drawing the Blinds," 2014]

4
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["The Jerome Project
(Asphalt and Chalk) III," 2014]

5
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[Beneath an Unforgiving Sun
(From A Tropical Space)," 2020]

6
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That's a complex idea,

7
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because the things that must be said
are not always lovely.

8
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But somehow,

9
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if they're reflective of truth,

10
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I think, fundamentally,
that makes them beautiful.

11
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(Music)

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There's the aesthetic beauty of the work

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that in some cases functions
as more of a Trojan horse.

14
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It allows one to open their hearts
to difficult conversations.

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Maybe you feel attracted to the beauty,

16
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and while compelled by the technique,

17
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the color,

18
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the form or composition,

19
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maybe the difficult
conversation sneaks up.

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["Billy Lee and Ona Judge
Portraits in Tar," 2016]

21
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I really taught myself how to paint

22
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by spending time at museums

23
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and looking at the people that --

24
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the artists, rather --
that I was told were the masters.

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Looking at the Rembrandts
["The Night Watch"],

26
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Renoir ["Luncheon of the Boating Party"],

27
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Manet ["Luncheon on the Grass"],

28
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it becomes quite obvious

29
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that if I'm going to learn
how to paint a self-portrait

30
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by studying those people,

31
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I'm going to be challenged

32
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when it comes to mixing my skin

33
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or mixing the skin
of those people in my family.

34
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There's literally formulas
written down historically

35
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to tell me how to paint white skin --

36
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what colors I should use
for the underpainting,

37
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what colors I should use
for the impasto highlights --

38
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that doesn't really exist for dark skin.

39
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It's not a thing.

40
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It's not a thing

41
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because the reality is,
our skin wasn't considered beautiful.

42
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The picture, the world that is represented
in the history of paintings

43
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doesn't reflect me.

44
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It doesn't reflect the things
that I value in that way,

45
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and that's the conflict
that I struggle with so frequently,

46
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is, I love the technique
of these paintings,

47
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I have learned from the technique
of these paintings,

48
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and yet I know that they have
no concern for me.

49
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And so there are so many of us
who are amending this history

50
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in order to simply say we were there.

51
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Because you couldn't see
doesn't mean we weren't there.

52
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We have been there.

53
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We have been here.

54
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We've continued to be seen
as not beautiful,

55
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but we are,

56
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and we are here.

57
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So many of the things that I make

58
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end up as maybe futile attempts
to reinforce that idea.

59
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["Drawing the Blinds," 2014]

60
00:03:27,588 --> 00:03:29,657
["Seeing Through Time," 2018]

61
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Even though I've had the Western training,

62
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my eye is still drawn
to the folks who look like me.

63
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And so sometimes in my work,

64
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I have used strategies like whiting out
the rest of the composition

65
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in order to focus on the character
who may go unseen otherwise.

66
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I have cut out other figures
from the painting,

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one, to either emphasize their absence,

68
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or two, to get you to focus
on the other folks in the composition.

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["Intravenous (From
a Tropical Space)," 2020]

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So "The Jerome Project," aesthetically,
draws on hundreds of years

71
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of religious icon painting,

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["The Jerome Project
(My Loss)," 2014]

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a kind of aesthetic structure
that was reserved for the church,

74
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reserved for saints.

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["Madonna and Child"]

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["Leaf from a Greek Psalter
and New Testament"]

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["Christ Pantocrator"]

78
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It's a project that is an exploration
of the criminal justice system,

79
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not asking the question
"Are these people innocent or guilty?",

80
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but more, "Is this the way
that we should deal with our citizens?"

81
00:04:49,282 --> 00:04:51,278
I started a body of work,

82
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because after being
separated from my father

83
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for almost 15 years,

84
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I reconnected with my father, and ...

85
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I really didn't know how
to make a place for him in my life.

86
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As with most things I don't understand,

87
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I work them out in the studio.

88
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And so I just started making
these portraits of mug shots,

89
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starting because I did
a Google search for my father,

90
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just wondering what had happened
over this 15-year period.

91
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Where had he gone?

92
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And I found his mug shot,
which of course was of no surprise.

93
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But I found in that first search
97 other Black men

94
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with exactly the same first and last name,

95
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and I found their mug shots,
and that -- that was a surprise.

96
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And not knowing what to do,

97
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I just started painting them.

98
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Initially, the tar was a formula
that allowed me to figure out

99
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how much of these men's life
had been lost to incarceration.

100
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But I gave up that,

101
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and the tar became far more symbolic

102
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as I continued,

103
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because what I realized is

104
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the amount of time that you spend
incarcerated is just the beginning

105
00:06:05,145 --> 00:06:08,089
of how long it's going to impact
the rest of your life.

106
00:06:08,113 --> 00:06:11,939
So in terms of beauty within that context,

107
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I know from my friend's family

108
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who have been incarcerated,

109
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who are currently incarcerated,

110
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folks want to be remembered.

111
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Folks want to be seen.

112
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We put people away for a long time,

113
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in some cases,

114
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for that one worst thing
that they've done.

115
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So to a degree,

116
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it's a way of just saying,

117
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"I see you.

118
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We see you."

119
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And I think that, as a gesture,

120
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is beautiful.

121
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In the painting "Behind
the Myth of Benevolence,"

122
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there's almost this curtain
of Thomas Jefferson

123
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painted and pulled back
to reveal a Black woman who's hidden.

124
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This Black woman is at once
Sally Hemings,

125
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but she's also every other Black woman

126
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who was on that plantation Monticello

127
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and all the rest of them.

128
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The one thing we do know
about Thomas Jefferson

129
00:07:18,856 --> 00:07:20,584
is that he believed in liberty,

130
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maybe more strongly than anyone
who's ever written about it.

131
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And if we know that to be true,
if we believe that to be true,

132
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then the only benevolent thing
to do in that context

133
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would be to extend that liberty.

134
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And so in this body of work,

135
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I use two separate paintings

136
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that are forced together
on top of one another

137
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to emphasize this tumultuous
relationship between Black and white

138
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in these compositions.

139
00:07:56,933 --> 00:07:58,788
And so, that --

140
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that contradiction,

141
00:08:01,434 --> 00:08:05,984
that devastating reality
that's always behind the curtain,

142
00:08:06,008 --> 00:08:11,028
what is happening
in race relations in this country --

143
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that's what this painting is about.

144
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The painting is called
"Another Fight for Remembrance."

145
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The title speaks to repetition.

146
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The title speaks to the kind of violence
against Black people

147
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by the police

148
00:08:34,260 --> 00:08:36,966
that has happened
and continues to happen,

149
00:08:36,990 --> 00:08:40,017
and we are now seeing it happen again.

150
00:08:40,566 --> 00:08:47,521
The painting is sort of editorialized
as a painting about Ferguson.

151
00:08:47,545 --> 00:08:50,044
It's not not about Ferguson,

152
00:08:51,304 --> 00:08:56,428
but it's also not not about Detroit,

153
00:08:56,452 --> 00:09:00,645
it's also not not about Minneapolis.

154
00:09:00,669 --> 00:09:03,652
The painting was started because

155
00:09:04,989 --> 00:09:06,763
on a trip to New York

156
00:09:08,128 --> 00:09:10,882
to see some of my own art
with my brother,

157
00:09:11,815 --> 00:09:15,078
as we spent hours walking
in and out of galleries,

158
00:09:15,102 --> 00:09:21,560
we ended the day by being stopped
by an undercover police car

159
00:09:21,584 --> 00:09:23,061
in the middle of the street.

160
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These two police officers
with their hands on their gun

161
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told us to stop.

162
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They put us up against the wall.

163
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They accused me of stealing art

164
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out of a gallery space
where I was actually exhibiting art.

165
00:09:36,868 --> 00:09:39,898
And as they stood there
with their hands on their weapons,

166
00:09:39,922 --> 00:09:44,531
I asked the police officer
what was different about my citizenship

167
00:09:44,555 --> 00:09:47,781
than that of all of the other people

168
00:09:47,805 --> 00:09:51,691
who were not being disturbed
in that moment.

169
00:09:52,238 --> 00:09:55,801
He informed me that they had been
following us for two hours

170
00:09:55,825 --> 00:10:00,384
and that they had been getting
complaints about Black men,

171
00:10:00,408 --> 00:10:03,144
two Black men walking
in and out of galleries.

172
00:10:04,050 --> 00:10:07,515
That painting is about the reality,

173
00:10:08,889 --> 00:10:10,649
that it's not a question

174
00:10:11,872 --> 00:10:15,623
of if this is going to happen again,

175
00:10:16,419 --> 00:10:18,079
it's a question of when.

176
00:10:20,695 --> 00:10:24,229
This most recent body of work
is called "From a Tropical Space."

177
00:10:24,253 --> 00:10:28,405
This series of paintings
is about Black mothers.

178
00:10:28,429 --> 00:10:34,269
The series of paintings takes place
in a supersaturated,

179
00:10:34,293 --> 00:10:36,286
maybe surrealist world,

180
00:10:36,310 --> 00:10:39,868
not that far from the one we live in.

181
00:10:39,892 --> 00:10:41,418
But in this world,

182
00:10:41,442 --> 00:10:44,539
the children of these Black women

183
00:10:45,703 --> 00:10:46,917
are disappearing.

184
00:10:49,335 --> 00:10:52,404
What this work is really about
is the trauma,

185
00:10:53,475 --> 00:10:57,035
the things that Black women
and women of color in particular

186
00:10:57,059 --> 00:10:58,226
in our community

187
00:10:58,250 --> 00:11:02,866
have to struggle through
in order to set their kids out

188
00:11:02,890 --> 00:11:04,300
on the path of life.

189
00:11:05,701 --> 00:11:08,008
What's encouraging for me

190
00:11:08,032 --> 00:11:12,916
is that this practice of mine

191
00:11:12,940 --> 00:11:15,810
has given me the opportunity

192
00:11:15,834 --> 00:11:19,612
to work with young people in my community.

193
00:11:19,636 --> 00:11:22,838
I'm quite certain
the answers are not in me,

194
00:11:22,862 --> 00:11:24,392
but if I'm hopeful at all,

195
00:11:24,416 --> 00:11:26,630
it's that they may be in them.

196
00:11:27,209 --> 00:11:31,493
"NXTHVN" is a project that started
about five years ago.

197
00:11:31,517 --> 00:11:34,779
NXTHVN is a 40,000-square-foot
arts incubator

198
00:11:34,803 --> 00:11:36,962
in the heart of the Dixwell neighborhood

199
00:11:36,986 --> 00:11:38,343
in New Haven, Connecticut.

200
00:11:38,367 --> 00:11:41,453
This is a predominantly
Black and Brown neighborhood.

201
00:11:41,477 --> 00:11:48,038
It is a neighborhood that has
the history of jazz at every corner.

202
00:11:48,062 --> 00:11:51,979
Our neighborhood, in many ways,
has been disinvested in.

203
00:11:52,373 --> 00:11:58,225
Schools are struggling to really
prepare our population

204
00:11:58,249 --> 00:12:00,526
for the futures ahead of them.

205
00:12:00,550 --> 00:12:05,846
I know that creativity
is an essential asset.

206
00:12:06,577 --> 00:12:09,696
It takes creativity

207
00:12:10,942 --> 00:12:14,699
to be able to imagine a future

208
00:12:14,723 --> 00:12:17,531
that is so different than the one
that is before you.

209
00:12:18,053 --> 00:12:25,034
And so every artist in our program
has a high school studio assistant:

210
00:12:25,058 --> 00:12:28,543
there's a high school student
that comes from the city of New Haven

211
00:12:28,567 --> 00:12:31,946
who works with them
and learns their craft,

212
00:12:31,970 --> 00:12:34,177
learns their practice.

213
00:12:34,201 --> 00:12:36,243
And so we've seen the ways

214
00:12:36,267 --> 00:12:41,275
in which pointing folks
at the power of creativity

215
00:12:41,299 --> 00:12:42,744
can change them.

216
00:12:43,856 --> 00:12:46,750
Beauty is complicated,

217
00:12:47,726 --> 00:12:49,874
because of how we define it.

218
00:12:51,096 --> 00:12:56,015
I think that beauty and truth

219
00:12:56,039 --> 00:12:58,956
are intertwined somehow.

220
00:12:59,410 --> 00:13:00,830
There is something

221
00:13:02,834 --> 00:13:04,388
beautiful

222
00:13:04,412 --> 00:13:05,757
in truth-telling.

223
00:13:07,560 --> 00:13:08,744
That is:

224
00:13:09,585 --> 00:13:13,611
that as an act, truth-telling

225
00:13:13,635 --> 00:13:18,053
and the myriad ways it manifests --

226
00:13:18,077 --> 00:13:19,753
there's beauty in that.