What's interesting about young black American artists within the twentieth century, and increasingly within the twenty-first as well, is that there's this expectation of a political corrective that demands that the artist fixes the ills of the world.

I use those expectations as a color on my palette, a certain temperature in the room. You can use those expectations for the great punchline, but also for a great painting, in society.

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.

There's a team of filmmakers who follow me in the streets when I'm finding these models, to give me a sense of legitimacy to a casual stranger. This is New York City. No one's going to follow you back to your studio.

What's interesting about young black American artists within the twentieth century, and increasingly within the twenty-first as well, is that there's this expectation of a political corrective that demands that the artist fixes the ills of the world.

In the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.

I have been painting models with black and brown skin only for the past years. So, I did already have this experience, this is how I have come to the paintings I do now.