ABOUT

I am a multigenerational, creole South African-American artist born and raised in NYC. I have lived and worked in China, South Africa, and Latin America. I pursued a BFA at City College in Harlem, New York specializing in painting and ceramics under the guidance of Sylvia Netzer. Throughout my artistic journey I studied photography, painting, and ceramics. As a result, I enjoy experimenting and engaging new media.

Being a member of a multicultural, multiethnic family I incorporate and blend sacred and profane cultural symbols to explore the human experience and individual as a cultural being and identity as a series of relationships and roles. 

After a few years teaching art and history at an alternative public high school in East Harlem I pursued and obtained a doctorate in anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington, all the while creating art. My research focus was identity formation of creole communities in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. With the support of Rotary International I used photography as a medium to engage local youth in a photo-ethnography-project that resulted in 3 exhibits that unpacked their communities and relationships.

Upon returning to the USA, my partner and I pursued a "digital repatriation" project that revisited the Wanamaker archive on Native American photographs by reuniting the images of ancestors with living descendants at Tuscarora Nation outside of Niagara Falls. The resulting exhibition "Stirring the Pot" displayed a series of 25 photographs depicting the original image with their descendant(s) in sites of their choosing. It has been displayed 6 times throughout Indiana and New York states and at Tuscarora Nation.

After teaching anthropology in Indiana my family decided to move to Western New York's southern tier. New places force people to redefine and find themselves. The move not only inspired my journey back into ceramic work but also challenged me to inform people about who I am. Check out my latest exhibition "Coloured Pots: Izinkamba kwamaKaladi" where I engage my dissertation by creating work that unpacks race and government policy as related to my family histories.  My hope is to continue to blend my ethnographic skills and artistic abilities to explore communities' values, challenges, and identities to create thought provoking work and projects that inspire others.