I-CON SERIES

LENNY POPE AS AN I-CON. Materials: Gold leaf, handmade egg tempera, and earth pigments on wood. Size: 8"x10”

This painting is a part of a series of work that address the absence of black bodies in traditional art narratives.

In this series, I wanted to include the presence of black people in stories where we fit, but have been intentionally extinguished and deleted, thereby ‘conning’ some people into believing that black people can’t be in these stories.

Now suddenly the memory of Daniel’s words come to me “His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like clean wool…”

I want us to see ourselves in the sacred places and stories of the past and know that we belong in the ones to come, despite what others think.

He is an icon for those whose stories deserve to be told.

GRACE AND SEVERIN THE EARTH, mixed media, paper, coffee, beads and steel wool on canvas, 42”x56”

LADY GRACE, acrylic paint on wood 24”x32”

FOUR WOMEN OF THE STRUGGLE

These paintings are a part of a series that celebrates the struggles, experiences, and strength of the black female body. The series was inspired by the Nina Simone song “Four Women.”

I wanted to highlight the grace with which we carry all that we have to walk through life with, things forced upon us and burdens not belonging to us.

“Strong enough to take the pain, inflicted again and again.”

There were times when we were down and we had to crawl to survive, times we had to run and wail to survive. In all of that, and with all those experiences, still, we rise and walk triumphantly. Sometimes we walk like Peaches and are labeled ‘Angry’.