I don't think that my work is actually effectively dealing with history. I think of my work as subsumed by history or consumed by history.

If you're a Black artist, you could paint a wall of smiley faces, and someone will still ask you, 'Why are you so angry?'

The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that's also what the stereotype does.

Silhouettes are reductions, and racial stereotypes are also reductions of actual human beings.

I don't think that my work is actually effectively dealing with history. I think of my work as subsumed by history or consumed by history.

A lot of my work has been about the unexpected—that kind of wanting to be the heroine and yet wanting to kill the heroine at the same time. That kind of dilemma—that push and pull—is the underlying turbulence that I bring to each of the pieces that I make.

One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad’s lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: ‘I want to do that, too,’ and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad.