Statement
Disability Information: Schizo-effective disorder
I was born in Brooklyn, NY in year 1981, being single-parented by my mother. At the age of 4, I started to draw beyond a child’s natural ability. I was very gifted for my age. I had a fascination with New York City bridges at the time and I drew them quite well. My art evolved over the years as I’ve gotten older, and around my adolescence I started drawing images of bearded black men. Keep in mind that today my images are what you see all the time on African-American men. My art made me popular in Humanities and the Arts High School and well liked; art being my saving grace from GOD at the time, because I suffered from chronic severe depression as a youth. Which caused me to later on seek GOD in my youthful years, as life became more of a burden where I made several conscious and unconscious suicide attempts, I became infatuated with healing and spirituality. This outlet in reading the word of GOD (reading religiously about GOD that loved me no matter who I was and what I did through His Son Jesus Christ) really liberated me causing me to take less medication for psychosis; loving myself-others with divine purpose. The bearded look is the image GOD favored speaking through Moses, for men not to use razors, I later found out. Since then, I’ve been desiring a full beard and drawing men with beards in my years to come. I attended art classes to enhance my craft throughout my life. During high school I attended Saturday classes at F.I.T., summer school courses at Brooklyn Museum of Art, night classes at the Jamaica Art Center, I received knowledge from Katherine Gibbs School (Associates Degree in Visual Communications), after high school and hands-on Saturday Studio sessions at HAI in the latter days of my life. My art is my voice for the human race. I use bearded black men as symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community. Expressing to them that we as a black male people can be victorious, achieving needed healing and unity. I have respect and honor towards black women too, plus I sometimes draw black women as a form of reverence to God’s creation. But my main focus is the male portion. My work is a testimonial that black men can be seen in a more positive, righteous light.
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