Early Creative Curls
Growing up as an Art enthusiast, during my school years I was fortunate enough to visit London Art galleries such as The National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery on a number of occasions.
In a time where the internet was still relatively new and not every student had access to it in their homes, visiting Art galleries was one of the essential starting blocks on the road to broadening our creative minds. Whilst we had textbooks in class that displayed some of the classic Artists such as Monet, Picasso, Dali and Degas, seeing works of Art in person gave a new awareness and appreciation of the skill, size and mediums all possible through Art. However. As the years went by and my mind started to question the World and where I fitted in, there was an overriding elephant in the room as I walked the floors of these highly respected galleries. Whilst the paintings were of a grand and undeniably impressive nature - none of the subject matters looked like me.
Where do I fit in?
Now again, I’d like to reinforce that I could and still can appreciate the skill that went into the Artistry on show - but in an establishment of that scale, my young teenage-self was disappointed that the majority of the Art, depicted middle-aged, upper-class white men. And whilst I understand that a big reason for this subject matter was down to Art being considered for the wealthy during the time of its creation - nonetheless I can only imagine the impact that seeing pieces based on other races and more relatable classes would have had on me back then. For me, looking at these works of Art left me feeling extremely far removed from anything that I saw, and unable to engage with them on a deeper level. But as Art is completely contextual, perhaps there was a reason I was left feeling this way. Perhaps that was always meant to be part of my journey that led me to what I create now?
At that time, the feeling of not seeing myself represented in Art went further than that of just paintings. Seeing people of other backgrounds and races on the television when all we had was channel 1-4 was limited, and from the musicians that I saw, if they were black or mixed race they ALL seemed to have bone straight hair (minus Scary Spice - shout out to her back in the day). Also, remember that this was a time before social media, smart phones and the entire World was in the palm of your hand! As a result, as I grew older and I began to explore and decide what I would choose to create artistically, it became abundantly clear that I wanted to produce that which I did not see. Why couldn’t both sides of my heritage be represented and celebrated?
Moving forward
During my GCSE and A Level years in Art, I can recall thinking of ways to intwine inspiration from my family back home in Uganda, as well as other predominantly black events such as Carnival into my collections of work. Even from that young age, I wanted to show the varying cultures in all their rich and colourful glory - helping to change the negative narrative that is so often shown in the media.
What has changed in my Art?
Since that dawn of realisation over a decade ago that I wanted to create for those who felt invisible - not much has changed. Perhaps now I am more unapologetic in why I create what I create. Yes I am mixed-race. Yes I choose to focus on black orientated Art. And you know what - that’s okay. African sub-cultures are so vast, beautiful and unique, why wouldn’t I want to help share that with those that follow me on my platforms? I guess that is the beauty of Art and why I fell in love with the process all those years ago. You can choose to use it to educate others, express emotions or simply to explore ideas that may never see the light of day. My only hope is that people can look at my Art and see themselves, family and friends and know that they too have a home in the Art world.
Creative Curls
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