I had no idea about where I was going. I had no sense of art as anything other than a problem to be fixed, you know, an itch to be scratched. I was in that studio trying my best to feel content with myself. I had, like, a stipend. I had a place to sleep. I had a studio to work in. I had nothing else to think about, you know. And that's - that was a huge luxury in New York City.

I love being able to have a team.

I think that one of the questions that I asked of myself in later years was to this point of the political directive.

So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.

Mel Bochner was able to give me the tools to look at those types of experiences, register them with my own, but also hold them far enough away to see them 360.

I think that artists provide questions, not answers. We provide provocations rather than fully formed objects.

That's partly the success of my work-the ability to have a young black girl walk into the Brooklyn Museum and see paintings she recognizes not because of their art or historical influence but because of their inflection, in terms of colors, their specificity and presence.