I try to convey what it feels like and sounds like and smells like and looks like inside of my particular skin, to move through the world as a black American woman in her mid-twenties.

It's hard for black women to ask for help. We think we don't need it. We're used to being in pain and living with it.

I think sometimes the stars align whether we want them to or not. And we're drawn to certain people and places for no other reason than...Destiny.

I think that we need to make it our goal to define freedom for ourselves.

We kind of have to rewrite our own stories and our own ways of being free.

We can look at history and see that [political turmoil is] fertile ground for art.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm trying to take a hit for the team so that other people then can move forward. I'm like, "Look, I just laid out all of my stuff, so what's the worst that can happen?".

In my experience when I do try to avoid something, it makes its way into the work anyway. To be in front of it and just make friends with it is easier for me.

Аrt movements are always linked to some kind of turmoil.

I really hope that people feel permission to talk about their own troubles, but also to celebrate themselves.

Sometimes it's just rejecting stereotypes, sometimes it's creating work. Sometimes it's just blocking out the noise.

The material's out there, a calm lake waiting for us to dive in.

I came to the earth for something, I must do something, and I must live and leave not just anything, but something!

I'm interested in the movement of the eyes across the painting.

Real love cannot be deceived because it wants nothing outside of itself

Finding patterns is easy in any kind of data-rich environment; that's what mediocre gamblers do. The key is in determining whether the patterns represent signal or noise

And you will believe in love And all that it's supposed to be But just until the fish start to smell And you're struck down by a hammer.

The people who think a guy walked on water versus the people who think a horse can fly.

I'm not sure why my muse is female, except when I am deliberately playing against that figure.

Barack Obama is an economic patriot.