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Opportunities have come over the years, many in the form of shortcuts I could not bear to accept. My denial of those possibilities had nothing to do with compromise, but the knowledge that my soul would fold in half each time I went against it. I have met people who were 1/16th of their original selves. The lack of light in their eyes let me know my hell was situational and not permanent. So I continued to walk towards dead-end streets with a fear that was the lump in my throat. A fear so opposite of hope that it left me so speechless I could not name the avenue I paced. Living artists must be bullet proof and capable of providing evidence of expectations that lay dormant in marrow like inexplicable DNA. I call creativity the 24th chromosome because the unaccounted for vision is the only message worth delivering. And so I live from the inside out; to remind those who still wrestle to find reasons as to why they have chosen to burn. For you, my soul is a canvas that is stretched across four wooden corners and tacked with copper nails that sink into the edges of timber like teeth; a square suspended in the air like a kite that soars in order to remind you that every step applied towards something honorable accumulates and every inch gained in the name of virtue counts. This is why I silence my fears with action and walk to each blank canvas like a lost child reunited with it’s maker. My art is my salvation. The way I confront the weight of what has been lost. My easel is my altar. My creations, unanswered prayers that hang in evidence of the colors that have seeped out of the cracks of my newly mended heart. I create the beauty I look for in the world like the loyalty that has been erased from maps like the forgotten roads that once left me betrayed. The scars don’t bother me anymore. I wear them like diamonds. Each dot linked on an invisible timeline like a chain, gems of crystal clear sweat that mark Point A from Point B. I had a destination. This knowledge was how I was able to face the fears that rang my discouraged heart -the organ that fluttered inside a cage of unyeilding ribs, as I looked for the strength to find the rope that helped me climb over the dead-ends. Hit upon the courage to lift myself, one hand above the other, one brush stroke after another. Canvases litter the path I have taken, each one as evidence of my dreams. There was no greater way to use the summation of time I decided to spend.
ART IS THE WAY I CHOSE TO LIVE.
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I paint the statues of Paris. It was an abrupt transition. In actuality, my focus on statues was a response to trauma. A friend of mine was murdered (WashingtonPost.com - Slain Friend's Memory Sets Artist on New Artistic Path: Graveyards), after identifying her body something inside me froze. I lost my security in the world outside me. I couldn't gather the words to speak. It was like the sentences had been choked out of me and the only way I could describe what I was thinking was through the life I breathed into stone. There was so much going on at the time. I am still unable to speak about most of it. I had wrestled the unimaginable for so long in an attempt to have my life match my dreams.
Then I arrived in Paris, and, well...I lost my place. I guess you could say I experienced an emotional paralysis. The statues were the only entities I could relate to. My memory is so incredibly strong that I can not forget much. A single moment can live forever inside me. Sitting alone on a damp park bench beneath a rickety umbrella in the Jardin de Tuileries I realized I was not the only one held captive by the power of time. The statues lived forever in a moment too.
Statues have a legacy of isolation and strength. I find comfort when I depict them. I help them shed their gray flesh and reveal them under a different "sky" because they have loaned me the authority of their souls and made me feel as though I could outlast anything.
MY METHOD: ANALYSIS AND ASSOCIATION
I am not an artist. I am an interpreter for the unvoiced. I define "stone" as abstract flesh and do not restrict the classification to minerals. Stones can be statues. Stones can be children. However, every "stone" reveals itself as a hardened structure which houses a significance that is confined. My passion obligates me to study these stones; identify their unvoiced desires, question the weight of their past, and acknowledge the pressure of being forced to hold a single stance throughout existence. I aim to clarify their personal history, depict details of loose emotional connections, measure, affirm and reconcile their positions. I translate the internal universe restricted within stones, making the subjects understandable by viewers who have only stood outside with judgment and not from within with consideration; reconditioning a race of people who stare at surfaces
objectively as an audience, but never dared approach the more private inner atmosphere of stone.
MY MESSAGE: STONES ARE RESILIENT
For hundreds of years stones have endured tremendous external pressure from elements like acid rain and wind. Of each stone I ask about the world they wanted to exist in, how they wanted to be loved -the colors that symbolize them. I reincarnate their dreams with the stroke of a brush using utensils as diverse as charcoal, oil paint and sand.
I have been chosen to deliver the message of the "stones" invincibility as I help each rock rise from repression to endure a life of brilliant color, aloud and spoken for.
WHAT DO YOUR WALLS REPRESENT?
-KEARIENE MUIZZ
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