Artist Statement

This series explores and represents the history of slavery within my genealogical family line and the shared history within a nation. I explore both as a descendant of the enslaved and the slave owner, as well as photographing my daughter on various plantations throughout the US and utilizing as layers other touchstones of slavery, I attempt to humanize the faces of history contrasted starkly against the inhumane words and abuses of the enslaved economic system. I attempt to re-visualize and expose their inner truth. Their divine beauty.
Within these images I seek to show beauty, strength and courage, whereas we’ve only ever been shown the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, beaten, and abused. The images we have been shown throughout history were images created by those who viewed us as chattel. No one ever thought to show us that once we were warriors - A proud and beautiful people. The visual narrative was chosen for us. So I choose differently. I choose to show strength instead of defeat, beauty instead of destruction, and the richness of courage rather than the poverty of abuse.