The postcards series inform this series of small paintings. They depict encounters between the police and Black people, which always seem to end up—unaccountably with black bodies in body bags. These works respond to this most American phenomenon—police brutality against Black people.

These six new paintings stem from my quiet observances of American life during the pandemic (2020-2022) and are the bookend to my previous series created between 2019 -2021. The paintings depict a certain view of American life. In this latest installment, I aimed to create pictures that spoke of deep, unrelenting silences. But, when I started to paint, these visual ideas began to penetrate my thoughts, and I accepted them and brought them to life. Indeed, they are solemn and even somewhat bleak. But what have these past two years been, if not grim? I use Kreyòl words to connect the idea that those two countries –the US and Haiti– are both undergoing profound and irrevocable changes, and although those words were a commentary on what happened in Haiti in 2010 during the devastating earthquake that took hundreds of thousands of lives, here, too, in the US we are undergoing tumultuous changes, and I realized that the same things can be said of both countries when we say: "Moun paka pale sa k ap pase nan peyi sa a; moun paka pale." ("People can't talk about what's happening in this country; people can't talk.")

The first four geometric and organic shaped paintings were created before the murder of George Floyd and the series of videos immediately before and after his death, which, taken altogether, changed the American Landscape. These works appear somewhat benign since I wasn't consumed with quiet rage and despair; they also represent a process of working and thinking before the shift from purely abstract shapes and forms to the abstract figurative.

This body of work is an internal and nostalgic exploration of racial and ethnic identity. Here, I am investigating feelings of displacement and otherness through memory, language, political chaos in the here and now. These exuberant and powerful characters authentically occupy their space.

This series began as a conceptual idea. It was to document -in visual form- daily news stories of police brutality. Soon after the project started, the postcards took off on a life of their own. I began referring to them as I worked on more extensive works. The postcards became a point of focus, leading the way.

These small works, created in a limited palette, are an offering to the gods--paintings that presume to offer a hint of mystery, beauty and grace to the world in this new American Age.

In this ongoing series I am creating abstract compositions that are critically analyzing the social and political aspect of this urban phenomenon. I aim to foster dialogue and reflection about what happens, economically and politically, when a neighborhood undergoes a fast changing cultural landscape. I often visit gentrifying neighborhoods and each time I am witness to the bracing pace of change. The narrative about gentrification is racial, political, cultural, economical and, above all, emotional for both the low-income and the mostly people of color who are being driven out of homes they have occupied for decades, and the gentrifiers who feel squeezed out of the established neighborhoods of their choice and are obliged to seek alternative housing in outlying neighborhoods. While these two groups who live side-by side are confronted by their economic realities, they are both unwilling victims of economic forces beyond their control. It is this forced dynamism that I want the series to evoke; I hope to engage both the heart and the mind of the viewer.

I use discarded materials, found objects and take photographs in my weekly jaunts through these neighborhoods to document and record these transitions in the paintings. I choose to name each painting for the idea that it represents.