My work is often about the frameworks of racism, how they operate and their impact on (me) society and contemporary life. I see Humphrey as a prequel to the work the public is familiar with. This work is about being on the receiving end of microaggressions and other racial experiences and what it looks like when metabolized, turned inward and becomes self-injurious.

Humphrey Gets His Flowers is a body of mixed media collage, Large-scale projection, projection mapping, augmented reality and archival video works that started out as “Mute-N-Heard”, a public performance collective (2005) in which four members traveled around the world painted in green walking through the streets of Times Square, Philadelphia, Germany, Hawaii etc.

Humphrey is the personification of a complex array of thoughts, feelings and experiences related to other people’s projections onto me. This work is about the fragility of youth and the creation of an imaginary friend who protected me by helping me unburden myself from external pressures I had somehow internalized. He became the embodiment of how I felt I was perceived during my formative years. As a form of protection for myself, I personified the monster “they” made me feel like. I thought if I became the monster it would give me back control of my own personal narrative. Humphrey became a pro-social coping skill leading to positive mental health and emotional outcomes