“Inspiration for my art is from the late 1950s and ’60s at the height of racial segregation in America. My focus is primarily on the Black female who has nurtured families (often not her own) from slavery through the present, seldom receiving the credit she deserves. Much of America’s wealth builds on the currency produced by free slave labor. My theories as a painter draw inspiration from American history and my career as a professor and filmmaker. Cinematic principles influence my work in the use of visual montage (the collision of ideas) and the juxtaposition of two or more fragments of nature (ideas) to generate a third idea (intellectual thought) in the viewer’s mind — a pedagogical moment. The main elements are binary (B/W) versus full color.”

— Alonzo Crawford