Location: Los Angeles and New York
Profession: Director, actor, entrepreneur
Collection started: 2008
What is the main focus of your collection?
The main purpose of my collection is to support and celebrate the incredible creative expression of black artists, primarily emerging artists from across the diaspora. There is a bit of a spiritual vocation involved: I listen to the drawing of the work that moves me.
What drives you to collect?
I like to share space with artistic expression – it stimulates mine and it’s nutrition for my children, as it is for me growing up. I sit with work much like I sit with people: we explore, challenge and relax together. Art calms and/or stimulates creative energy. And we are, as African people, a collective body, all involved in this journey together. It sounds a little sweet, but it’s specific and real: I like collaboration. I like being among my own and I like my home to be a safe, creative and complete space.
A little support can go a long way in an artist’s life, in anyone’s life. We can all relate to developing a profession, to taking risks, to being vulnerable. And I take great pleasure in helping and supporting creative black people who put their necks up and try and celebrate the attempts. That’s what I’m here for: to connect with people who are committed to themselves so that I can see them and their work grow and evolve.
We are a community: the artist, the patron, the collector, we are peers, and not only in name. Most of the people I’ve gathered, I know them; we see each other, we kick each other, we talk, we text, we laugh, we challenge each other and we learn from each other. We discuss things until the wee hours of the morning. We travel together. These are people who are part of the blood and family of my life.
Can you tell us about a work or two that you acquired through Artsy.
Who are the artists whose work you admire and would like to add to your collection?
wasted race, no self-indulgence, all the details. Lorna is a master; one of your favorite artists’ favorite artists. A kind of chromatherapy. I respect her and she moves the room. The collection will cheer and go wild when it arrives.
