From the Artist

My earliest prints at Brandywine [Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, in 1985] related to festivities such as Carnival (Brazil), Mardis Gras (New Orleans), Jonkonnu (Jamaica), and other Caribbean and American African-based festivals, with their spectacular imagery and costumes. As in such festivals, my earlier prints were tinged with Eurocentric pageantry, costumes, and religions, although African ancestral imagery predominated. The prints were also inspired by music, such as African music, Caribbean music, and Jazz. From music I learned how to think ahead to avoid confusion as I planned. And from music I learned how to make complex compositions and to improvise. Some of my earlier compositions may seem chaotic at first (not unlike some music) but become more understandable to the patient viewer. Through music I learned how to make form and color pulsate and reverse positionand direction invisual counterpoint. However, whereassuch things are the essenceof music they are merely factors that support imageryin my prints.I don’t try to make visual music. My art is not music but is affected by it. My recent prints are more narrative than the earlier ones. In some of these later prints [made between1993 and 2012]I use imagery such as Yoruba Ibeji figures, tropical plants, animals, landscape, musical instruments and ceremonial objects along with human figures. In these more recent prints, I create stories and make complex compositions that are still inspired by music, but which are more literal in content. The stories embedded in my more recent prints are my own creation about the African Diaspora: life and fantasy of people of African descent worldwide.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}