Inherited Expression On the Corner
This piece began from my deep admiration for the energy, fashion, music, and cultural duality that existed within northern inner-city communities during the 1970s. Even though I was born and raised in North Carolina, I’ve always felt spiritually connected to the atmosphere of uptown culture from that era. The way people carried themselves, the pride within fashion, the rhythm within the environment, and the visible presence of identity and self-awareness within everyday life.
At the center of the composition sits a child-like figure holding books, symbolic of inherited knowledge and cultural awareness being passed from one generation to another. Around the figure exists a layered world of indigenous American men and women dressed in the elegance and expression of the time. Tailored suits, hats, dresses, afros, body language, and style all becoming reflections of pride, individuality, discipline, and presence.
What inspired me most was the duality that existed within those environments.There was beauty and struggle existing side by side. On one corner you could find books carrying ancestral knowledge and self-awareness, while nearby jazz musicians played instruments into the street. Funk, jazz, soul, and R&B moved through the atmosphere while people sold clothes, gathered socially, struggled with poverty, or became consumed by street life at the same time.
That contrast became deeply important within the painting.
While creating this piece, I continuously listened to "Be" album by Common along with "On the Corner" song by Miles Davis. Both projects carried the exact emotional texture I wanted the work to embody—rhythm, soul, improvisation, urban tension, consciousness, movement, and cultural layering existing all at once.
As I built the collage, the painting started feeling less like a recreation of an era and more like an emotional memory of a place I spiritually connected with despite never fully living within it myself. The bright colors throughout the composition carry the musicality of the piece. They move almost like sound and it feels alive, energetic, improvisational, and constantly shifting. Beneath that energy, however, is reflection. The work carries both celebration and tension at the same time, mirroring the reality of those environments.
Through collage and abstraction, I wanted this painting to feel like standing on the corner itself, hearing jazz in the distance, witnessing style and struggle exist together, feeling knowledge circulate through conversation, and recognizing culture being created in real time. In that way, the painting became not only a reflection of 1970s northern street culture, but also a reflection of myself. It shows my attraction to cultural consciousness, improvisation, ancestral connection, music, fashion, and the layered realities that continue shaping the way I see the world today.
At the center of the composition sits a child-like figure holding books, symbolic of inherited knowledge and cultural awareness being passed from one generation to another. Around the figure exists a layered world of indigenous American men and women dressed in the elegance and expression of the time. Tailored suits, hats, dresses, afros, body language, and style all becoming reflections of pride, individuality, discipline, and presence.
What inspired me most was the duality that existed within those environments.There was beauty and struggle existing side by side. On one corner you could find books carrying ancestral knowledge and self-awareness, while nearby jazz musicians played instruments into the street. Funk, jazz, soul, and R&B moved through the atmosphere while people sold clothes, gathered socially, struggled with poverty, or became consumed by street life at the same time.
That contrast became deeply important within the painting.
While creating this piece, I continuously listened to "Be" album by Common along with "On the Corner" song by Miles Davis. Both projects carried the exact emotional texture I wanted the work to embody—rhythm, soul, improvisation, urban tension, consciousness, movement, and cultural layering existing all at once.
As I built the collage, the painting started feeling less like a recreation of an era and more like an emotional memory of a place I spiritually connected with despite never fully living within it myself. The bright colors throughout the composition carry the musicality of the piece. They move almost like sound and it feels alive, energetic, improvisational, and constantly shifting. Beneath that energy, however, is reflection. The work carries both celebration and tension at the same time, mirroring the reality of those environments.
Through collage and abstraction, I wanted this painting to feel like standing on the corner itself, hearing jazz in the distance, witnessing style and struggle exist together, feeling knowledge circulate through conversation, and recognizing culture being created in real time. In that way, the painting became not only a reflection of 1970s northern street culture, but also a reflection of myself. It shows my attraction to cultural consciousness, improvisation, ancestral connection, music, fashion, and the layered realities that continue shaping the way I see the world today.