Black in the Landscape

Black in the Landscape is an ongoing, place-based project exploring Black presence and belonging in natural environments. Through small-scale painted portraits, site references, field notes, and transcripts from interviews the work documents how Black women choose, inhabit, and relate to outdoor spaces. The project functions as a living archive, growing slowly and intentionally alongside my life as an artist, mother, and healthcare worker.

Entering 2026

These two works mark my return to this project at the end of 2025. They are painted from portrait references gathered in 2020, when Black in the Landscape was first taking shape through conversations, photographs, and shared time outdoors. While parts of that early archive were lost, these images remain carrying memory, intention, and presence forward.

Rather than attempting to recreate what is gone, I am allowing the project to continue from what still exists. These paintings function as a bridge between the project’s beginnings and its current form: smaller in scale, slower in pace, and firmly placed in sustained attention. They signal a shift toward a living archive that honors continuity without requiring completeness.

This is how the work enters 2026.