Alone in a Room Full of Angels

Alone in a Room Full of Angels is a compilation of several smaller bodies of works surrounding concepts of spirituality, faith, and culture. The series began in 2018 on 35mm film and has since continued on 120 medium format film.

This featured section of Alone in a Room Full of Angels remains untitled. With a focus on spiritual communities of color located in the South, this body of work includes some of my own interpretations of spiritual imagery featuring friends of mine, visualizing religious figures as young, contemporary Black people. Traditionally, religious art (specifically Christian art) has depicted its figures and important characters as white, despite scientific and geographical evidence showing that the region’s people would have “skin like bronze.” With this series, I am exploring what it would look like if Black people could see themselves represented in religion and the implications of that on our ideas of self-worth. What effect can be had on a community when they are never allowed to see themselves as divine?