Doubt/grief/confusion/defiance/performance/confidence/blindness/resignation—sitting unresolved.  

Linked Portraits are a way to study the interval between individuals in relationships shaped by racialized societal conditioning. Painted from a photograph or still for its moment of thinking, reacting, or acting—when the face and posture is unaware of what they connote or their semantics. A glimpse. When portraits are placed together, they become constellations of entanglements, both individual and historical. 

Portraiture increases my  awareness of the split self—what we think we are and how we want to be seen, versus what we don't see in ourselves and what we betray without knowing. My paintings are conjecture—the reality is that I don’t know, the person in the portrait doesn’t know, and none of us fully understand ourselves.

Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 in (each portrait)

James Turrell & Kanye West

Sethe & Amy from Toni Morrison's Beloved

Henry Schwartz & Adelani Sanni

James Baskett & Bobby Driscoll

Essie Mae Washington & Strom Thurmond

Carolyn Bryant & Mamie Till-Mobley

Cecil Murray & Grandaddy

Dana Schutz & Hannah Black

Oil on Arches oil paper, 22 x 30 in (each double portrait)

Amos 'n Andy
Amos: Alvin Childress & Freeman Gosden (top)
Andy: Spencer Williams Jr. & Charles Correll (bottom)

Firing Line 1968, William F. Buckley Jr. & Muhammad Ali