Sugar crystallizes something in our American soul. It is emblematic of all industrial processes. And of the idea of becoming white. White being equated with pure and 'true': it takes a lot of energy to turn brown things into white things. A lot of pressure.

I’m fascinated with the stories that we tell. Real histories become fantasies and fairy tales, morality tales and fables.

I often compare my method of working to that of a well-meaning freed woman in a Northern state who is attempting to delineate the horrors of Southern slavery but with next to no resources, other than some paper and a pen knife and some people she’d like to kill.

A lot of my work has been about the unexpected – that kind of wanting to be the heroine and yet wanting to kill the heroine at the same time. That kind of dilemma – that push and pull – is the underlying turbulence that I bring to each of the pieces that I make.

I think really the whole problem with racism and its continuing legacy in this country is that we simply love it. Who would we be without the ‘struggle?’

If you’re a Black artist, you could paint a wall of smiley faces, and someone will still ask you, ‘Why are you so angry?’

There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist – it’s not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.

I don’t think that my work is actually effectively dealing with history. I think of my work as subsumed by history or consumed by history.

The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that’s also what the stereotype does.

There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.