PLATO

• What are the main themes you touch upon in this show? ​​​

  • ​The transatlantic slave voyages, the segregation of pools, the color blue and its relation to Black portraiture and the spiritual connection our bodies and ancestors have with water, to name a few. 

​

• Why cyanotype? How did you come to this medium and what exactly is the process?​

  • I worked for a long time with photography but at times felt limited in that medium because I was raised to draw and paint frequently by my father. I’d always had a multitude of ways I wanted to express myself and fell in love with artworks that blended multiple mediums. Cyanotypes, although tricky, had enough abstract elements with their tones, and the way that each print was unique in some way. It opened room for me to experiment and play with different textures and images. I’d only seen cyanotypes done at a smaller scale, so it felt like a challenge and a way to push the medium to increase the scale of the works and create what felt like an entirely new medium.

  • Additional note: English botanical artist, collector and photographer Anna Atkins was the first person to illustrate a book with photographic images. Those images were cyanotypes.

​

• ​What are the challenges associated with it?

  • In my experience working at this size is extremely difficult, given the limited materials, i.e attempts at getting the perfect print, and factors that contribute to the ideal end product. I consider the water temperature of the rinse, exposure time of the print, size of the print, darkness of the room, wattage and placement of the light, fabric type, contrast of the particular negative, etc. There’s a lot of experimentation involved with each artwork to strike the right balance of all factors. It’s costly, time consuming, requires a large dark space to work in, and access to a water hose and drain to rinse each piece all in one submersion.

​

• Please explain the title of the exhibition, Threaded Blue.

  • ​​I thought of it as it relates to the thread of time and its connections to the progression of events when it comes to violence, water and Black bodies. Additionally it literally references the blue threads that compose the cyanotypes on fabric of the majority of the displayed pieces.

​

• How are the series in the exhibition related?

  • De/Recomposition refers to those lost during the Transatlantic passage that the enslaved peoples were brought on. Containment is a step back in linear time to when enslaved people were kept inside the hull of the slave ship and their place as cargo/”material goods”. Innocence and Justice reflects the later consequences of colonized peoples living on a continent not their own, now further alienated from their natural relationship with water. It focuses specifically on young Black boys and the effects of pool segregation/violent disconnection from life’s natural resource.

​

• Please speak more about the research you did with the scholars and what your part in it was.

  • ​Initially it began with a lot of reading and research on my own until I reached out to the historians whose work I’d become entirely familiar with but who existed as only references in my research. I’d realized that truly deepening my connection and understanding of their work would mean to have the direct conversations that were essential for the foundation of what I was building. ​

  • I reached out via email to Jeff Wiltse who I had a fantastic conversation with that completely expanded my understanding of my work. Jeff then turned me towards his colleague and academic peer, Kevin Dawson, and his scholarship. Kevin and I have had a continued relationship going throughout the past year and a half through sporadic conversations and involvement in the UC Irvine’s “Descent and Transformation” project in November 2024. Kevin was a panelist for the project, and my work, inspired by his research, was included in the group show, and I was invited to give an artist talk to the college’s undergrad history students.

  • Ehime Ora, who since our meeting has written Spirits Come From Water, is a priestess of Ifa, writer and scholar. I’d initiated a conversation with her after following her online writings for some time about ancestral veneration, Orisa practice, and her own musings on spirit’s relationship to water. My reaching out to her for help in my own work has led to a very deep friendship and continued connection.

 

• Can you tell me more about the sculpture – its meaning, materials, who posed for it, production, etc. Who are your models and how do you pick them?

  • ​My close friend Tyler Givens, an artist and former swimmer, posed for the sculpture. It was a mixture of image tech to capture his form and physical material. We did a full body 3D scan in Brooklyn where I then collaborated with an artist in upstate NY to produce the base bust figure out of PLA. I transported that back to my studio in New Jersey. Afterward I picked the pool tiles after going through multiple samples in search of the right color and texture. Then I worked over the course of several days to lay the tile on the form, then grout the spaces between so that the entire form became exact to that of a poolspace. Working with square porcelain material over a natural form was difficult, but the resulting structure, when touched, seems eerily similar to the curves and form of a person, yet cold and slick. When placed in the sun, the sculpture holds heat and warms. It also reflects light with a prismatic quality.

  • The swimming pool has always been a site of tension—its intimacy, visibility, and enforced boundaries have historically excluded and endangered Black people. Pools were deliberately designed in many communities to deny African Americans access, both through legal segregation and through violence. In this work, I wanted to reclaim that history by using the very material of the pool—a space of exclusion and harm—to build the portrait of a Black man. The title, “Black People Can’t Swim,” references a persistent stereotype that arose not from truth, but as a direct result of the systemic denial of access to water and safety. Reworking that narrative through this piece becomes an act of liberation.

​

• How do you choose your models?

  • ​Almost all my models are friends or introduced to me by my close network. On the rare occasion of necessity, I’ve street scouted models, like the boy in Innocence and Justice.

​

• What are your plans for future works?

  • ​I’ve been slowly building up my personal archive of found photographs tied to Black aquatic culture across different eras. (Leisure spaces like beaches and pools, Navy service, or other relevant areas of interest). I’d like to use those images found across the 30s–70s as references for future artworks or directly incorporate them into collage or print work.

​

• Is there anything else you’d like to share?

  • ​In 2024 I travelled to Costa Rica, California, Barbados and Senegal to continue the research and documentation of the project.

​

References:

   - Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools by Jeff Wiltse 

   - Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora (The Early Modern Americas) by Kevin Dawson

   - A Talk by Kathie Foley Meyer