The Hand of God Meets Wax, 2019

This piece is a nod to Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. With the use of the fresco color palette and process of layering, this collage reflects not only the fresco technique used by Italian renaissance painters but also the transfer of life from the supernatural. The hand of God here appears over a skyline of Brownstones and is accompanied in the center by the famous Apollo theater, placing this divine act in Harlem.

In this piece God is Black, and the spark of life happens through one of the most recognizable features of Hip- Hop music - scratching on vinyl. The purpose of The Hand of God Meets Wax isn’t just to challenge Eurocentric iconography in Western society, but rather to provoke thought and interrogate the origins of improvisation as a feature of Black American aesthetics.