For Those Who Come After (2025)

Acrylic on Canvas

This acrylic diptych depicts Freedom Corner, a sacred site in the historic Hill District that is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement. It has a history of continuously serving as a launch pad for social demonstrations, where community members pour their soul into ensuring the next generations' struggle toward the mountaintop of liberation isn't as steep.

In the painting, there are abstract, colorful youth who are looking to the bronze figure within the monument as a source of joy and a blueprint forward - as though she carries the spirit of the ancestors. As a fifth generation Pittsburgher, with family roots in the Hill District - I created this piece as a live painting for the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, in honor of Black History Month to engage our community about Pittsburgh's not too distant history in the freedom movement. While there have been trials Pittsburghers of the past have endured, and in some cases have triumphed - those strides are not to be taken in vein as we are still carrying on their fight today. I wanted this piece to have texture, movement, and color symbolizing hope for the future while honoring the past.