Blind, 2018

Blind is a striking portrait of a woman with bronze skin and bold locs piled high in a messy bun, rocking a neon aqua tube top and matching frames that seem to vibrate against the background of hot oranges, sublte yellows and neon pinks. The complementary colors create an electric tension that makes her pop right off the canvas.
 
What is humbling to me about this piece is how it's evolved alongside my own journey. When I first painted her, I called her "Unapologetic" - like a manifesto, my way of saying "take me or leave me" to the world. But the irony I discovered later was that in my rebellion against conformity, I was actaually conforming to a different kind of expectation - the pressure to be defiantly individualistic.
 
That realization is when she became "Blind" to me, which then caused her to take on a whole new spiritual dimension. Interestingly enough, unlike other works that God prompted me to paint over or completely destroy, this one stayed.
 
Now, the triangular frames with no eyes behind them have become a beautiful and profound metaphor for walking by faith rather than sight, for being comfortable with the unknown, and trust God in the process. She reminds me that God can use even our most misguided steps to lead us toward becoming who we were always meant to be.