WEBVTT

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I believe there is beauty

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

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[Drawing the Blinds, 2014]

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

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[Beneath an Unforgiving Sun
(from a Tropical Space), 2020]

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That's a complex idea

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because the things that must be said

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are not always lovely,

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but somehow,

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if they're reflective of truth,

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I think fundamentally
that makes them beautiful.

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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.

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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,

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and while compelled by the technique,

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the color,

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the form or composition,

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maybe the difficult
conversation sneaks up.

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[Billy Lee & Ona Judge
Portraits in Tar, 2016]

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I really taught myself how to paint

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by spending time at museums

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and looking at the people that --

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

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Looking at the Rembrandts,

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Renoir,

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Manet,

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it becomes quite obvious

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

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by studing those people,

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I'm going to be challenged

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when it comes to mixing my skin

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or mixing the skin
of those people in my family.

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There's literally formulas
written down historically

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to tell me how to paint white skin --

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what colors I should use
for the underpainting,

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what colors I should use
for the impasto highlights.

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That doesn't really exist for dark skin.

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It's not a thing.

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It's not a thing because

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the reality is our skin wasn't
considered beautiful.

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The picture,

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the world that is represented
in the history of paintings

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doesn't reflect me.

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

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and that's the conflict that I struggle
with so frequently --

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is I love the technique
of these paintings,

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I have learned from the technique
of these paintings,

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

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And so there are so many of us

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who are amending this history

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in order to simply say we were there.

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

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We have been there.

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We have been here.

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We've continued to be seen
as not beautiful,

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but we are,

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and we are here.

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So many of the things that I make

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end up as maybe futile attempts
to reinforce that idea.

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[Drawing the Blinds, 2014]

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[Seeing Through Time, 2018]

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Even though I've had the Western training,

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

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And so sometimes in my work,

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

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

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I have cut out other figures
from the painting.

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One, to either emphasize their absence,

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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

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of religious icon painting.

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A kind of aesthetic structure

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that was reserved for the church,

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reserved for saints.

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

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Not asking the question
are these people innocent or guilty,

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but more, is this the way
that we should deal with our citizens.

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I started a body of work

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because after being
separated from my father

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for almost 15 years,

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I reconnected with my father

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and I really didn't know
how to make a place for him

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in my life.

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As with most things I don't understand,

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I work them out in the studio.

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And so I just started making
these portraits of mugshots,

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starting because I did
a Google search for my father

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

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Where had he gone?

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And I found his mugshot,

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which of course was of no surprise,

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but I found in that first search,

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97 other Black men with exactly
the same first and last name,

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and I found their mugshots,

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and that --

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that was a surprise.

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And not knowing what to do,

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I just started painting them.

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

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

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but I gave up that,

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and the tar became far more
symbolic as I continued,

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because what I realized

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

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of how long it's going to impact
that rest of your life.

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So in terms of beauty within that context,

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I know from my friend's family,

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who have been incarcerated,

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who are currently incarcerated,

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folks want to be remembered.

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Folks want to be seen.

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We put people away for a long time;

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in some cases,

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for that one worst thing
that they've done.

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So to a degree,

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it's a way of just saying ...

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I see you.

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We see you.

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And I think that,

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as a gesture,

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is beautiful.

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In the painting "Behind
the Myth of Benevolence,"

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there's almost this curtain
of Thomas Jefferson

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

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This Black woman is at once Sally Hemings,

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but she's also every other Black woman

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who was on that plantation Monticello,

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and all the rest of them.

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The one thing we do know
about Thomas Jefferson

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is that he believed in liberty ...

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

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And if we know that to be true,

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if we believe that to be true,

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then the only benevolent thing
to do in that context

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would be to extend that liberty.

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And so in this body of work,

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I use two separate paintings

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that are forced together
on top of one another

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to emphasize this tumultuous
relationship between Black and white

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in these compositions.

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And so that --

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that contradiction,

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that devastating reality
that's always behind the curtain,

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what is happening
in race relations in this country --

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that's what this painting is about.

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The painting is called "Another
Fight for Remembrance."

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The title speaks to repitition.

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The title speaks to the kind of violence
against Black people

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by the police

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that has happened

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and continues to happen,

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and we are now seeing it happen again.

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The painting is sort of editorialized

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as a painting about Ferguson.

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It's not not about Ferguson,

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but it's also not not about Detroit,

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it's also not not about Minneapolis.

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The painting was started because

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on a trip to New York

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to see some of my own art

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with my brother,

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as we spent hours walking
in and out of galleries,

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we ended the day by being stopped

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by an undercover police car

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in the middle of the street.

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These two police officers
with their hands on their gun

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told us to stop.

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They put us up against the wall.

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They accused me of stealing art

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

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And as they stood there
with their hands on their weapons,

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I asked the police officer
what was different about my citizenship

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than that of all of the other people

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who were not being
disturbed in that moment.

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He informed me that they
had been following us for two hours,

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and that they had been getting
complaints about Black men --

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two Black men walking
in and out of galleries.

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That painting is about the reality

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that it's not a question

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of if this is going to happen again,

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it's a question of when.

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This most recent body of work
is called "From a Tropical Space."

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This series of paintings
is about Black mothers.

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The series of paintings takes place
in a supersaturated,

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maybe surrealist world

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not that far from the one we live in.

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But in this world,

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the children of these Black women

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are disappearing.

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What this work is really about is trauma.

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The things that Black women
and women of color in particular

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in our community

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have to struggle through
in order to set their kids out

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on the path of life.

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What's encouraging for me

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is that this practice of mine

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has given me the opportunity

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to work with young people in my community.

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I'm quite certain
the answers are not in me,

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but if I'm hopeful at all,

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it's that they may be in them.

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NXTHVN is a project that started
about five years ago.

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And NXTHVN is a 40,000-square-foot
arts incubator in the heart

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in the heart of the Dixwell neighborhood

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in New Haven, Connecticut.

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This is a predominantly
Black and Brown neighborhood.

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It is a neighborhood that has
the history of jazz at every corner.

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Our neighborhood in many ways
has been disinvested in.

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Schools are struggling to really
prepare our population

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for the futures ahead of them.

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I know that creativity
is an essential asset.

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It takes creativity

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to be able to imagine a future

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that is so different than the one
that is before you.

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And so every artist in our program
has a high school studio assistant.

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That's a high school student
that comes from the city of New Haven

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who works with them
and learns their craft,

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learns their practice.

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And so we've seen the ways

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in which pointing folks
at the power of creativity

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can change them.

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Beauty is complicated
because of how we define it.

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I think that beauty and truth

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are intertwined somehow.

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There's something beautiful
in truth-telling.

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That is --

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that as an act, truth-telling,

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and the myriad ways it manifests.

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There's beauty in that.