My father wanted me to be a dentist like him, or any doctor, really. There was this attitude of, 'The civil rights movement was not about you being an artist.'

I grew up in Georgia, and my mom would tell me how to perform and act. So I learned to repress a lot of myself so that other people would feel comfortable.

Imagination allows you to bend the rules of the temporal world.

I want my portraits to create a space where blackness can breathe.

I paint as a way of looking for myself in the world.

To be human is to be visible.