This painting changed my life. This work completed here formed first as an idea to merge the two beams of my existential inspiration as an artist. It came from a hybrid-art assignment in painting class. This assignment was the first piece in the class that I had done since the passing of my friend Bri, who match-made me with my now-husband. Before then, all of my paintings were made pink (her favorite color) and solely revolved around my grief from losing a close friend. At the time the assignment was first presented to me, my future husband and I were just a few weeks from becoming newlyweds, and I, (being a person who takes every momentous occasion to be a grandeur action because it deserves that acclaim), mentally could not get out of my head how special it would be to marry a Black man and begin a legacy, changing my both our family’s lineage and generational curses.

Over the course of 3 long weeks, I painted “The Dual Plight of the Black Family”. In the painting, the Black family is a mythical assortment of the pros and cons of what it is to be Black at any stage of life. I wanted the dialogue between the past and the present, the present and the future, and of course the successes and pitfalls of every stage shown above in Black life. This painting drew from the inspiration I received from vigorously studying contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley and his larger-than-life Black Rococo-styled portraits, replaying the memories of Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, studying how to design quilts, researching clothing design from the Victorian era up until present day royal attire, memorizing the Emancipation Proclamation, and posing imaginary figures with multitude of small innuendos to make sure my viewer stays and connects with the painted family for hours.