In some places you can find an extreme blackness used as a descriptive. I also take into account historical realities that some of this range in color is the legacy of white supremacy.

It's forcing the issue of perception by rendering an image that is just at the edge of perception, which in someway forces you to look more closely and for you to adjust your vision so you can see in the dark.

You can describe [Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self] as a manifesto of sorts. I saw it as a pivotal turn, a work that really led me down the avenues that brought me to where I am. That picture was the vehicle that helped me clarify a lot of things and I began to understand that I wanted to do.

When State Way Gardens and The Robert Taylor Homes were being torn down, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to use that as a backdrop for the development of a super hero narrative.

The moment you introduce difference into a museum, then the privileged space is contested, and under the most ideal circumstances what all artists want is the chance to be competitive. That's what I think the museum is supposed to be.

Like a lot of young people who wanted to be artists, comics were a gateway for me.

If you're constantly being reminded of the ways in which your history and your narrative as a people were rooted in loss and decay, then you're in deep trouble. Once you make a certain kind of peace with the past, then you should be completely oriented towards speculation about the future.