POWELL FINE ART
 

My work carries forward the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance—an era that transformed art into a declaration of identity, freedom, and beauty—and my training under some of the world’s greatest African-American artists. My work stands within that lineage: rooted in history, layered with memory, and committed to elevating the overlooked into the extraordinary.

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Growing up in the Bronx, my world was alive with improvisation: chalk marks on sidewalks, graffiti murals, wrought iron fences with their sculptural curves, and the battered elegance of metal garbage cans became my first art forms. These everyday objects held stories of resilience and rhythm, echoing the realization that culture, no matter how humble its origins, could be a source of pride and power.

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My childhood summers brought contrast: escapes to the countryside at my grandmother’s home and days at overnight camp immersed me in nature—trees, lakes, clouds, wide skies. These experiences sharpened my sense of duality: the architectural grit of the city and the boundless calm of open landscapes. Today, this tension fuels my practice, informing compositions that weave urban strength into the organic softness of nature.

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My college experience and training at Fisk University, a beacon for African American intellectualism, creativity and exceptionalism since 1866, is central to my development as an artist. 

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At Fisk, I studied under some of the world’s greatest artists. David Driskell, a towering figure in African-American art, instilled in me the audacity of color and the discipline of restraint—his words, “Sometimes we have to know when to stop,” guide every aspect of my creative process. Stephanie Pogue, whose printmaking brilliance resides in my private collection, showed me how color and composition create narrative depth. Walt Williams, painter, printmaker and ceramicist, introduced me to layering and the understanding that complexity of surface can mirror the complexity of life itself. And Aaron Douglas, a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance and a painter, illustrator and Fisk professor—I studied his powerful campus murals and was inspired by him to reimagine the black experience in my own work. 

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Like the Harlem Renaissance artists who reclaimed beauty from adversity and elevated Black life into a universal aesthetic language, I embrace hybridity and innovation. My mixed media works combine texture, fabric, handwriting, and vibrant pigment. They are grounded in a palette of blues, yellows, and oranges—colors drawn from skies, water, and sunflowers that radiate optimism and resilience. Urban artifacts—lamp posts, fire escapes, cobblestones—interlace with organic forms, holding space for both past and present, city and nature, memory and possibility.

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At its core, my work is an affirmation: that art is a continuum, that heritage should be honored and that the African-American creative tradition—born from resistance and reimagining—remains an unstoppable force deserving of being celebrated through art.