As a kid outside of Chicago, I dreamed of princesses in gorgeous dresses, mermaids with shimmering tails and accessories, and magical girls with powers beyond this world. But every time I tried to step into those dreams, someone tried to push me out.

My white teachers told me those stories weren’t “real” enough.
My classmates told me I couldn’t play with them in their fantasy worlds.
Even people in my own community said my imagination was “too white.” That I was being an “Oreo.” How cosplay wasn’t for girls like me.

But I never stopped dreaming.

Today, my work reclaims those stolen fairytales and builds new ones—ones where black women and girls are the center of the story. Not sidekicks. Not symbols. But heroes, royalty, spellcasters, and wild-hearted nymphs.

Each piece I create is a window into a world where black girlhood is protected. Where softness is power. Where fantasy belongs to us, too.

My figures aren’t just painted on canvas—they rise from it. I use sculptural elements to make each character feel dimensional, alive, and undeniable. They wear mango orange and sea green. Their skin glows in rosephine and cinnamon slate. They’re textured, layered, and unapologetically vivid—just like the women I paint for.

One holds a fish—a tribute to the late artist Qing Han, whose work helped keep my inner child alive. That piece is for the dreamers who’ve been told their dreams are “too much.” For the ones who learned Japanese, who dressed up as anime characters and were told they couldn’t. For the ones who created anyway.

Black women deserve the world. And my art is a love letter to that belief.

In a time where conservative voices are working to erase us, flatten us, and silence our joy, creating art like this is more than aesthetic. It’s protection. It’s protest. It’s a promise to the next generation of Black girls: You don’t have to ask for permission to exist in beauty, magic, or power.

I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Illinois College, but most of my real education came from learning how to protect my wonder—and now I share that wonder through every canvas I create.

If my work calls to something in you—an inner child, a long-lost dream, a truth that’s ready to be seen—then collect it not just as art, but as a reclamation.