We Move Different, 2025

Materials: Mixed media with oil paint, ceramic tile mosaic, synthetic hair, glass and natural pearl beads, gold gilding and papier-mâché. 

Size: 23.5 × 23.5 × 3 in

Short Description:
This work honors Hoodoo as an African American spiritual practice born from survival, adaptation, protection, and ancestral memory. The elder figure carries a lifetime of knowing in her face. Her head covering becomes a mosaic crown: fragments gathered into beauty, strategy, and power. Around her, braided forms, flowers, pearls, and dark foliage suggest a living system of care and protection. Within the larger sequence, this work marks the moment when knowledge that has been hunted, dismissed, or demonized begins to reappear as power. Hoodoo appears here not as superstition, but as a precise and embodied technology of survival. We Move Different speaks to knowledge that does not always announce itself, but knows exactly how to move.

This one is probably the best for the application because it explains why the painting is included in the arc.