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

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

I didn’t want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful

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.

I think really the whole problem with racism and its continuing legacy in this country is that we simply love it. Who would we be without the 'struggle?'

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

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.