Poet/ Fine Artist/ Performing Artist
I came to this country from my home in Antigua as an eleven-year-old boy.
Art is something that has always been apart of my life. As a boy, I remember constantly drawing and using my mother's foil paper to create figures and animals.
In my grandfather's tailor shop, I saw thousands of patterns and colors in the fabrics, basing compositions on their relationships and effects on the viewer. In college, I became fascinated with the power of colors, basing my compositions on their relationships and effects on the viewer. Recently, I have been studying African art trying like Picasso to incorporate the shapes and forms of my ancestors; also using the work of European artist as a foundation for my own voice as an artist was nowhere.
Ghanaian artist Sami Bentil had an influence on the new direction of my work. Bentil's use of the mask to represent the human face in his work opened up a new world, freeing me from the confines of anatomical correctness.
My love of reading may be most responsible for my venture into writing to status of secondary talent, concentrating on my painting. Reading the works of the great writers with Black skin of the world that came before me, feed my need to use words as my brush.
In February of 2000, I released my first self-published book "41 Times" dedicated to Amadou Diallo; this was followed up in February 2001 with the CD "Self Portrait".
I am currently working on my second book titled "Amerikkkan Exile." I live today in Stamford, Connecticut with my and five children.
My one man play/show is called "Self Portrait" (American Exile). It's the story of one West Indian's struggle to become apart of the melting pot, while discovering the truth about himself.
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