The Color of Remembrance:

I paint from memory. Since we choose what to remember and what to forget, I use my art to illuminate what I have not forgotten.

When I was a child men would carve totems for the ancestors and women would come together as painters to beautify the village shrines where these totems resided. I'd watched these self-taught artists prepare colors - the traditional way and paint long-lasting murals. While some of these designs were hidden spiritual codes and statements meant for certain people in the community, others were pure aesthetics. The body of works I share is founded upon the remembrance of these past memories. The same technique of watching, learning, and producing what has kept the walls of my village relevant over centuries, is what is represented in my works. The primordial wall paintings of the old women in my village are what I have transferred to modern canvas.

As a writer, photographer, and painter, I share with my viewers my arrivals at meanings. Some of my works serve as a bridge between my African life and my present American experience, and also how recent and ancient memories form the confluence of our day to day existence

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