harDpressed (2 Corinthians 4:8–9)
Sometimes the pressure you’re feeling starts showing up in what you’re creating.
There was a period when I began realizing that Harlem—and eventually New York City itself—no longer felt like the place where I needed to remain.
I felt cramped. Closed in.
What became interesting was that I started seeing that same feeling appear in my artwork. My work was becoming increasingly compressed within the pages I was creating it on. The lettering grew larger, forms pushed into one another and everything seemed to be fighting for space.
harDpressed came out of that period.
The title connects to 2 Corinthians 4:8–9, a passage about experiencing pressure and difficulty without being crushed or destroyed by it. At the time, those words connected with where I was mentally and creatively.
The black-and-white composition reflects that tension. My lettering occupies the center while the forms overlap and press against one another within the horizontal bands surrounding them. There is pressure throughout the piece, but the name remains intact.
Pressed, but not crushed.
Looking back, I can see something in the artwork that I may not have been fully articulating at the time. I needed more room—not only physically, but creatively.
Eventually, I understood that creating that room meant leaving the environment I had known for most of my life.
harDpressed captures a period before that transition, when the need for change was already beginning to reveal itself through the
• Ayous wood .75″ (1.9 cm) thick frame from renewable forests
• Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)
• Paper weight: 189 g/m²
• Lightweight
• Acrylite front protector
• Hanging hardware included
• Blank product components in the US sourced from Japan and the US
• Blank product components in the EU sourced from Japan and Latvia
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