UB009

ULTRABLACK is a series I made to celebrate the beauty, complexity, and radiance of Black identity. Black identity is central to my art practice and to who I am. While The Art of Vanity has been a vehicle for healing, I wanted ULTRABLACK to almost be the exact opposite. This series started as a personal exercise, a way to reconnect with the joy of creating for the sake of creating.

I put so much of my story and my healing journey into my art, and that comes with a lot of intentional thought about the meaning and the message behind everything I make. This time, I honestly just wanted to take a break from all of that and create purely out of joy. I got to turn my brain off and just have fun. The Black experience is not a monolith, and it's so much more than trauma.

My experience is so much more than trauma. With this work, I got to embrace Blackness as a source of light, strength, and boundless creativity. Instead of using art to heal old wounds, I was creating from a place of joy, affirmation, and presence. I wanted to celebrate Blackness in its purest, most radiant form. Every piece in this series is built on a deep black acrylic base, and I wanted it to be unapologetically and undeniably Black.

On the larger reimagined versions, I love the contrast of that black base against bright, colorful backgrounds. Honestly, this process, it reinvigorated me in so many ways. For someone like me, creating from a place of freedom and letting the work speak for itself has been incredibly liberating. For the first time, I'm asking you to tell me what the work means.