Ferrari Sheppard and Angelina Jolie at Atelier Jolie | NYC | Artist Talk | 04/09/24 |

so we've never talked in this space we've never used this space to talk so I hope you guys can hear us and I'm so grateful that you all came to just experiment with us on this first night to see what it's like to bring a bunch of friends together to hear another friend and Brilliant artist have a conversation and um so so thank you for for jumping in and and spending the day with us and the night with us so you and I we were just talking about like um I just opened the show here in New York yeah and um it's my first solo show here and oh yeah it's my first solo show I've done like um like Tab and different uh fairs and everything but this was the first like dedicated show yeah and who's has anybody gone to see Jubilee yet if you haven't you have to but uh it's not far from here it's on for a while right till yeah well it's it's I think the 26 or 25th yeah you have to check it out but uh we were just talking about how like as um as a black black man who creates art um it's it's it's often difficult to have the art World discuss my work in a way that is intellectual and um and and not just the cursory glance of like oh he's he's making black figures and they're abstracted you know um I always say that like Picasso he created art he didn't create white art he he didn't create Spanish art it was accepted as art so I believe that my experience um is also part of the human experience and you know maybe it's idealistic to think of right now in that way but I I feel that that I would like to see it where it's like this is just part of humanity you know um but yeah that's what we were talking about before the cameras came on yeah and is there anything as as a white woman who wouldn't know is there anything where you also say yes to be to be seen as just beautiful extraordinary art right at the same time you are you there is a lens a body a face a shade of skin that isn't that hasn't been in many ways represent as beautifully as you represented for for far too long MH and so how do you is there is there a because there need there's space for that right right I I think that like when I when I was in high school you know before before it became popular to know that basat was a genius and amazing like we were like high school art Geeks and we knew that you know this was in the '90s and um and I heard I heard him say something or I didn't hear him say something it was a quote from him where he was talking about I don't make black art I make just art you know and I remember being offended by it because I'm like are you are you are you ashamed of being black also I was a kid but are you ashamed to that's the way it it it it was presented to me because I had no reference I had no reference to the struggles that he he was going through as a young man in the art world you know and facing racism and stuff like that so now that you know I've been given an opportunity to I'm not sitting in a seat but I'm very close that um that I I understand what he was saying where it's just like you know we do have a responsibility and I feel like it's a responsibility to my ancestors and to the people who are still going through struggles today uh to represent in the best way possible but I feel that I do that without without you know mention it just happens it is what it is like every I feel that just like with one of my favorite painters his name is Jack Whitten he always talks about the work is political when I wake up in the morning and I make it uh it is authentic and political without saying you know but can we talk about the ideas that are behind it because Jack Whitten was deep in the philosophy uh and science behind you know this magic that we call Art you know at the end of the day uh if nothing else could show us the reality it's like when Co hit you know the first thing that people went towards was like create creativity and art and it was then that I kind of like realized I'm like everything that we value in society you know whether it's a Mercedes Benz or a mansion or some nice shoes sneakers whatever that's that's a that's art you know if music you take you take any of that away and you know what are we like just uh IRS um pray and you know what I'm saying just like what what you know what is life um yeah if that makes sense you know yeah absolutely and so Jubilee what what is the what was the thought behind that in particular and that that that word and that and that series first of all like Jubilee there there are a few words in the uh English lexicon or whatever that when you say them or and you see them and you see them written that they give off a feeling right Jubilee is one of those words where sounds and looks like what it is which is this celebration and uh whether it's a you know finite timeline or if it's just a general feeling is the same um obviously you know I'm coming as far as like africanamerican the African-American experience uh Jubilee represents the Emancipation Proclamation uh which has always been um interesting yet contentious subject because because of you know uh I don't necessarily believe that a a person such as Abraham Lincoln has the power to free anyone you know uh the laws can change and I think that that was important that the law did change and but with the show I kind of I'm never based so I'm never based solely in reality you know I'm always there's always a fantasy aspect to the to the work and more so like a fantasy aspect to history you know history to say okay we know the Emancipation Proclamation happened what was it what did it feel like for a black family who is or if they existed because it was wasn't much of a family but the black family to be finally emancipated so to speak right uh we all know that there were not opportunities available it's like you're a man you're free to do what you know but you know on a less cynical look Outlook on it I'm sure that they were like like um there was a idea like of Freedom that we could do anything and from what we saw like from the Emancipation Proclamation up into the mid uh 60s we saw uh um a century of just this explosion of creativity and um you had doctors lawyers uh inventors all coming out and and you know like what Gil Scott SC Gil Scott Heron often talked about when he was with with his poem like white he on the moon always interpret that is like if black people or a brown people were not oppressed what could we have accomplished right now together you know saying we could have been we could have done so much more but um that was kind of like the the basis for the show and I always say that my work where it is where it exists right now is in like so one of my favorite bands is is nirvana right and Kirk kovain Kirk Coan is one of my favorite writers and I kind of always look I look at his work and I say like um his first album you know bleach and then utero not in uter excuse me incesticide those were Cobain uh gazing out at the world right it was almost like he was he was observing things that he saw into the world but his work didn't become truly powerful at least in my opinion until the Gaze turned Inward and That Was Nirvana where he started talking about the uh the landscape within um and that's when you start to get to the meat and potatoes of what it is to be a human being you know know and I think that I'm I'm experiencing a pivot where like my gaze has always been outward you know CU it's safe it's safer like you know uh there's I feel like there's a nightmare going on out here in the world but there's always a worst nightmare going on inside and a fight always fight between good and evil and everything and your past and your present so um I feel that I'm on the Crux of Crossing over until now we're going to start seeing things seeing my life right so Jubilee is I would say I can't dictate it cuz who knows what I'm going to paint next but I feel like this is going to be one of my last shows where I'm where I'm gazing out at the world you know um yeah yeah so uh yeah oh that's so well just the process of being an artist to get to that and the journey that you keep taking and the self-discovery and the view of the world and yeah um I think that's why when we see your work we have that it does something for us but we didn't create it but we can sit in front of it and we can absorb it and it can feel it can take us somewhere it can remind us of things it can be and sometimes we don't understand it it just is and and we want to live with it or we want to look at it often and we want and it does something unexplainable but it's so important yeah I I love that I love when um people aren't able to expl explain what it is that draws them to my work um there there have been times where I wake up at 3:00 a.m. or whatever or maybe I'm just in the studio listening to Jazz and I'm drinking some whiskey and I'm feeling good and something will hit me where I I'll I'll understand that what's happening here in terms of what's on the canvases is uh 100% spiritual like I've never I've never had a spiritual experience like in in the traditional sense like in church like I used to close my eyes in church and I would see red and silver dots and I'm like wa like I didn't feel like they saying see God and I'm just like I don't see anything I would almost be nodding off you know um but the only time that had a religious experience is when like I said I'm in a studio and I'll turn back and I'll look at something that I created and I can't explain it and I say man this is so beautiful that not to not to minimize myself but I feel like I can't like this I can't create that you know like and not I don't know if that's true or not but that's the feeling that I have I can't I'm not able to create that so it must be some greater um some greater energy that's something coming through you yeah that's creating the work and you know I think that when I with the tragedies that happens with a lot of artists I I I assume that it's it's it has to do with that with that with that great gift that's given that there's this burden almost that um that is hard to reconcile for a lot of artists and if you're lucky if you're lucky you can mature to a point where you can learn to stabilize stabilize and you know stabilize all of the the gifts that you have and not have that equal part of Destruction because you know we live in a world it's all ying and yang it's all like balance so you're creating you're giving you're giving all of this energy out to the world and there's this kind of like you know when you step on step near a cliff there's like a a slight urge to jump there's that in the creative process like constantly where like a a creation and destruction um so I'm grateful to actually like to have made it P I feel like that that that phase where I'm like okay I can maybe make it till I'm 80 or something do you go through periods where like uh have you ever tried to not paint have you ever tried to restrain yourself and see what happened have you ever tried to just yeah I did um so when I left the school of the Art Institute of Chicago uh their program is so extensive where like um first of all it's very it's extremely conceptual right so like I joke about it all the time like I this is a real story we uh once I I watched a girl bang her head against the locker for 15 minutes on a video and he was like well what does this mean you know and I'm just like it means you might need some help like she means you know so but but it was very conceptual you know and in between that we were learning art history and I'm talking about like hundreds hours of art history and you learn about the rooted to toe of everything that's ever been done and for what it did for me Al you know aside from going to school in a museum it it just it sterilized me like I felt like you know what first of all what could I contribute to this 500 600 years of art secondly I'm just I feel like a soldier you know how the Marines say we break you down and build you up I'm I'm broken down you know and that's why most people go and wait tables and they just say like I don't I don't I'm not going to be an artist so I left the I left the Art Institute wow I left the Art Institute and um I tried to become an artist and uh put up my show and people came and they drank drank the wine ate the cheese and left and I was just like okay this can't be what it means to be artist because I can't pay rent you know um so I decided to just go and do something else and that's when I start that's when I started I embarked on journalism which led which is crazy it's like a crazy yeah journalism which led to music music production and you know you're just doing something especially like when you're in your early 20 mid 20s you feel that you could do anything so which is great you know um but I always knew that I would Circle back to my purpose my true purpose um which is visual art you know and the reason that I know this my true purpose is because I look at I survey everything else that I've done in my life and you know I was good you know some people say he's right really well and uh his album is okay right but there's never been anything where I actually saw someone cry you know when they see the work and um if I'm being completely honest I neglected my talent for a long time I think because I thought that it would always be there you know and I also also thought that it was too easy too easy to be true because my life had been so hard I'm like anything worth having is worth really working for so hard you know and early on I saw that I was getting attention for being an artist and I was like this is it was too easy you know you didn't trust it it didn't I didn't trust it I didn't trust it and I still have issues with that because like I've shown all all around the world now and then my work like valued at all this stuff and I'm just like I still have Underdog mental you know um and I don't know if it'll ever go away and I don't think that I necessarily I don't think I I want it to go away well it's a funny thing isn't it to put a price on Art yeah right it's a strange thing and it's become such a business and it's put the to decide the value you know the value to you yeah you know the person that sits with it looks at it knows the value and then there's this kind of other this business and in any of of the creative Fields where there's this other measurement other business that that should just be there to make everything else possible Right take the pressure off make it possible or have the but so often it does it it gets you further further from just that simple thing you want to do and communicate and I look at them as two separate things right I had to come to that to terms with that because I used to I lit like literally and physically did not want to part with my work it was a problem because how are you going to survive it's like I'm like no this is mine and it's like but we have to like sell it and uh you know um so but that's an interes like so I had to change my idea about money right because I grew up the when I growing up I had a extremely negative view of money right because I capitalism I was the victim of capitalism you know I was in the housing projects and you know it's hard so I had this idea that if you if you become rich then you you become evil right and what where I've come to now is that I think that money allows a person to be more of what they were in the first place you know yeah it just it doesn't give freedom no I'm saying give if if you're [ __ ] up it's going to make you really [ __ ] up oh I understand that right yeah it's going to just magnify whatever those yeah and if you're charitable you're going to become more charitable you're going to have more resources to do such right um so I had to I felt that I had to change my attitude because I was not like I was repelling I don't want to call I don't believe in blessings because I don't believe that people sitting in Starbucks are blessed and people sitting in Haiti are cursed you know I just think some people are are you know I don't say lucky I don't know [ __ ] chance like you sitting in Starbucks and you you know you have lights right now but this this random chance or whatever where I am now like the positive part that I that I see from my market is that I stand on the shoulders of so many black artist who died um without seeing a penny right and not just it's not just black artists it's white artists as well right this is a new phenomenon um relatively new where we're able to not only live off of our artwork but we're able to create and and uh become philanthropists you know and uh I think that's important it's important and that I was asking an interview recently just like you know what my future plans or how I felt like you know and I said you know one of my biggest focuses outside of the work is to is my philanthropy right um when you're coming from generational poverty right no one prepares you for for uh financial success so what starts happening is that every body and their mother from distance cousins to whatever they're like you know hey you know I'm I I have uh what I what stomach cancer and I need whatever you know it's like all this stuff and they're all asking for stuff and when early on I I was excited and I also was whatever I was just giving giving giving and then I realized I'm like I'm not helping I'm hurting myself and there's no structure to it to where it can be sustainable you know um and I actually had to go to therapy for that to like realize that you know you have like if I have a giving hard and you want to to do well but you it has to be in a structure it can't just be like here I'm going to give you give you give you because people will just go crazy with that right so I think that that's something that artists there's no training program to learn that to like okay you're going to go from starving and eating ramen noodles and not paying rent to now you're a millionaire like or whatever you know 100 th000 there there's no there's no preparation or you know and as much as possible like within reason I I try to help like other artists who are up and coming like get prep them a little bit cuz right now we're sitting in bosot space and I I I feel that he fell a victim to that to like this art world who they they could be extremely brutal and um and callous and it's like if you don't have the fortification around you spiritually and otherwise then you you you could really be In Harm's Way you know and I'm just what am I talking too long no yeah know no it's it's it's wonderful to hear you talk about it yeah um yeah so that's important to me you know yeah no so much to so much to come to terms with the life as a as an artist and to communicate and to yeah I mean it is and my my honest opinion of the art world right now is that it has become completely corporate um and the spirit of what made art like art you know the the punk rock or just like I don't know the ethos of that has has has just kind of folded and I understand why because it's like like what I just described there this you know Paradigm of like I don't want to I don't want to [ __ ] up my [ __ ] like you know like if I I if I get shut out then I'm going to be shut out you know um and that's true like there's so many things that uh that can really end your career and for me like I I take those I think I I talked to you once about that where I was like telling you like man I don't know you know how to navigate you know how I feel inside and what's right versus what is being presented to me and what is what what uh will Garner success because I'm not I'm not a [ __ ] fo like I know that I feed my whole family right so they all depend on me just like you know I'm sure your family depends on you and is not like whatever rare but that is the fear that everyone is walking around with you know this is like that they that they that's what capitalism kind of does but an artist right if you say is it then is that strange thing we all deal with with we're supposed to stay you got to stay a little bit in that area where you you're pushing and you're questioning and you're right well but I I think that and it's good you do and you need to you have to right I think that though if that is your natural practice like so with my work right I my work I once tried to paint of a um reproduce a a painting from Jacob Lawrence it's a it was a race it was Jacob Lawrence painted uh a scene of a race riot in um St Louis and I was like I want to just I love that painting and I want to try to like see if I can add my thing to it you know and I did it and I was like this is not you you know like so there is edar Allen Po and then there's like uh what's my guy who did Green Eggs and Ham uh Dr Dr Seuss right both unnecessary or a Tupac Shak who is like he could have these heavy themes and everything and then there's a ll cooj you know and no I love Co um no but um you have to figure out where you exist in that right so I think my strength I know that my strength is showing what we could be right that's that's really beautiful you know and sometimes like I get a little you know the journalists come to me and they like you know it's just so beautiful and it's just black beauty and I'm like oh [ __ ] no like there it's so de it's so much deeper there is pain there but I'm also showing us what we have the potential to be you know and I I know the problems I know the problems of the world like I look at I I watch I constantly you know I turn into Fred Hampton at night like speaking to my friends in private I'm just like this [ __ ] in the [ __ ] you know and yeah but when it comes to my art that's my refuge so like I leave all of the the problems of the World Behind I say well what can we be like this is what I'm painting right now you know mhm yeah if it really feels that way yeah your work thank you yeah I'm a huge fan of before before we met and got to know you I just I just love your work I just think it's so it is beautiful but it is more than beautiful and I don't have the words to describe it I just it's strong too it's very it's very uh you know sometimes you see the work and you still you still feel somebody's discovering they're finding they put something out it feels like it knows what it is it has an it's something very absolute about it even though it it moves and it and it's and there's a fluidity and there's a the way the colors the way the shapes the way the movement the feeling there but it decided there's I don't know how to how else to explain that right it just it feels it feels by with a very steady hand so uh I'm discovering in my work um the minute I feel that I I think that I got let's say I'm working on a painting and I'm like I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and then and I feel like I really have a hold on that painting it's time to destroy it because I'm comfortable I'm comfortable and I need to be uncomfortable because growth growth uh is not necessarily a pleasant experience it's a uncomfortable experience so I'm trying to find the painting I'm I'm I'm and it's real it's coming for me and then I'll see it and this is where I think that the the you know the what differ differentiates a professional artist who can repeat this process over and over it's like knowing when to stop knowing when the painting is there and also finally seeing how this organic searching and it's it's very it seems very um confident because I am confident I'm confident that I'm if I don't find I'll just [ __ ] go to sleep you know if I don't find a painting and nothing happens I go to sleep but otherwise I see something I finally see something I see a mother and child and it's a different type of mother and child it's a mother and child I may have seen you know is a amalgamation or what if that's the right word of all of the mother and children that I've ever seen in my life and it's now in this one moment and what you know the the mark making and the lines what that does is it's like you can create different moments within one so they're all happening at once and then I'll frame that I'll frame that with a little of um let's just say stability and then I'll bring in some gold I want I want to accentuate certain parts and bring bring a focal point in and then now now it feels like life because that's how like I feel like that's the process of life you're trying to figure out you're going through a breakup and then but you also just got a new job and you it's like a lot it's always some a lot going on and then when you go to when you finally lay your body down and like all human beings we always have to no matter how much stress is going on our body's going to shut down you shut down and then you wake up and you might have some clarity you know and I try to put that in a repetitive cycle over and over into one painting So 500 years from now people can see it and they can feel that journey of of struggle and Triumph and you know and yeah so that's the if there's a secret ingredient that's what it is in the work and it's um it's more complex than just black Joy or black figuration abstraction um and I hope that I don't have to pass away until people can like really look at it and and and appreciate it for that you know whatever you know yeah well I that yeah yeah we do appreciate it and many many more people I think that that are becoming more aware I don't think anybody who isn't face to face with your work doesn't appreciate it it's just making sure enough people get face to face with it right but yeah it's it's stunning and beautiful and and clearly comes from such an authentic Place yeah and and uh yeah so thank you thank you you know and um I also just want to thank you for opening your space to me and I know you know we spoke when this was in a development stage and I'm sure it's still it's still growing you know uh theier and tell me if I'm saying that wrong because tell I'm I'm not French well you know it's so funny is I started this thinking this is going to be this atier and I'm going to have all this stuff but then somehow that that part I hasn't haven't even started yet and the building itself yeah has taken over so you know you you come into a room you think you're going to build something to deal with sustainable you know fashion as art and really to me it was just about creativity not and then and then you take the boards off the walls and you discover that yeah and then you learn more about the history and then you and the building is reshaped everything so to to sit here with you as a first conversation in this room it's like you're christening this space and allowing it to be the beginning of something new so thank yeah I mean I I this is like so before before you had the space I would I would walk past here and you know I'm I'm big on feeling feeling SP like do I how do I feel about a space like I don't know if you've ever had it where you walk into a space it's almost like it's a negative feeling just want to leave you know you don't even know why but then there's these positive spaces that invite you in and that's the way I feel about this space you know so it's um I was speaking in an interview recently about this the multiple lives that we live uh you don't have to be a famous artist to have this happen but we have the living the living life that we have now and then we have the Legacy that we leave behind right and that has an energy and it and it's a real energy you know um and and it doesn't die you know so like right now what's happening in this space because it's in this is just what I feel it's in alignment with the original Cre what was happening here the creation that was happening here then it's all it's blessed you know and um that's what I feel about it so yeah I got to get you painting here got to encourage him to paint yeah I mean see what see what this space does we'll close the whole building we I'll bring you coffee that would that would be crazy you know like cuz cuz I think that I've noticed I paint differently in different places yeah I want to show you upstairs yeah let's walk around yeah I've never been up there so yeah that would be cool yeah hey hey thanks everyone thank you did [Applause] it so we'll move the chairs around some tables we'll figure out food in the front room and we'll all just figured out together all right cool thank you guys for being an audience and thank you so much yes oh I got us