200 Yrs

About the Work

From the Artist

This print celebrates the historic election of Barack Obama in 2008 as president of the United States and traces the legacy created by others and their work in advancing the African American community in the U.S., 200 years after the Slave Act of 1808, which was placed in the Constitution to create a 20-year waiting period before the presence of African slaves would be acknowledged in the U.S. 

In order to get slave states' approval of the Constitution, in 1808 it was agreed that the U.S. would no longer accept slaves directly "imported" from Africa, which resulted in slave ships subverting this law by changing their manifest to suggest slaves (their cargo) were imported from the Caribbean after a stop-over for this purpose in countries such as Cuba. 

Within the print image there's the iconic image of the slave ship in which Africans were packed in to maximize cargo hold capacity. Martin Luther King's dream and Obama's legacy of hope were possible because of the triumphs of those who came before them in the struggle for civil rights and social justice, including key orators, writers-authors, academics, community leaders, and politicians.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

My art usually incorporates photographs, primarily from family albums, historical archives, and media arranged as a montage with scale, marks, colors, and spatial arrangements that evoke a sense of movement and time. Subjects reference the family/ancestry, African American history, and injustice as a global concern of my art/documentation projects.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}