I am very happy to say that my original painting “Through the Leaves” has been sold through Abend Gallery! This has been such a meaningful painting for me ever since I finished it in early 2021 so I’m incredibly happy seeing it go to a new home. Please take a second to read the piece description below, I put a lot of thought into this one.
This painting shows a trapped man. Ever since he was born into the color of his skin he has only been seen in this way. We choose see him through the leaves, broken, unfinished, and most of all unlike us. We only see him in these leaves as a way to control him rather than trying to understand him. As a society we refuse to see this person and people who look like him in a different light and recognize that all people are complex and multifaceted individuals. Like all of us this man is striving to find success and meaning in his life but he lives in a world that feels the need to put him into a specific box.
Even though he is a kind, sensitive and compassionate individual his intent is assumed to be malicious and selfish and so everyday he feels the need be extra accommodating to those who are threatened by him. As he looks out through the leaves he finds a world that is fearful of him and ready to challenge his every move due to the color of his skin rather than the content of his character. He sees a world that is ripe with opportunity for others but these opportunities have conditions and requirements that shut him out.
This man is looking us straight in the eyes and asking us to be better. He is asking to be set free from these leaves so that he can live a life untethered from where we put him.