I often compare my method of working to that of a well-meaning freed woman in a Northern state who is attempting to delineate the horrors of Southern slavery but with next to no resources, other than some paper and a pen knife and some people she'd like to kill

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?'

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.

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

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.

I often compare my method of working to that of a well-meaning freed woman in a Northern state who is attempting to delineate the horrors of Southern slavery but with next to no resources, other than some paper and a pen knife and some people she'd like to kill

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