Matunda ya Dhahabu Painting

I am an Afro-Latina portrait artist based in NYC and Savannah, Georgia. I paint unique and vibrant portraits for unique and vibrant people! At the age of thirteen, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I was considered to be one of the older patients and did not have priority over the Nintendo 64. I was given paper and a pen instead. My days at the hospital were filled with drawing people as they passed by my room. This prompted my mother to put me in an art school. However, I was placed in a school where they only spoke Mandarin! There I learned to draw portraits and paint landscapes. Despite the language barrier, I realized how art in itself was a universal language. As someone of Haitian descent, there were interests in my art skills and possibly becoming a Haitian painter. The pressure to be someone slowly made me dislike painting landscapes despite my skills in it. During pre-college I went abroad to Tuscany for a change of scenery. It was here when I had my canvas and paints out, overlooking a stunning landscape, when the sound of buzzing surrounded me. Moments later I realized I got stung by a bee because I couldn’t see out of one eye. I WAS ALLERGIC! My eyelid had blown up. An old Italian woman came to the hill where I was and offered me to come to her home to remedy the bee sting by placing an onion over my eye. Naive and hopeful I followed. As I watched the woman interact with her family and go about her daily tasks, I realized there and then my passion for telling people’s stories through portraiture. By creating portraits I could communicate an entire story about someone without having to say a word. And to connect despite where we may come from.