The Restoration / Black Boy Joy, 2025

36 × 24 ″ Framed: 45 × 33 × 2.5 ″ Embroidery, acrylic paint and other mixed media on archival pigment print

For Sale

From the 19th and early 20th centuries, in the United States, “alligator bait” imagery depicted mainly Black children as bait to lure alligators. This imagery appeared in postcards, comics, figurines, sheet music, and more. A search of the Library of Congress digitized newspaper archives yields many results of news articles written about the use of Black children as bait including an article in the the Washington Times (1908) reporting that a zookeeper at the New York Zoological Gardens baited "Alligators With Pickaninnies". It is debated that there’s not enough evidence that instances like this happened, however, there’s not enough to prove it didn’t (regardless of if it was isolated or widespread). But what can absolutely not be debated is the harmful memorabilia that still circulates marketplaces as collectibles today.

The found figure of a black child sitting on the back of a gator becomes the centerpiece of my Black Boy Joy, In Memoriam film, and is the same “restored” figure held by the sitter in The Restoration / Black Boy Joy, now bronzed and placed on a carousel horse. Both found objects, now transformed. The boy now sits upright, gazing upward with joy and wonder.

In this series, once-dehumanized figures are recontextualized within photographic portraits, held in the arms of Black children and families, “restored” and reimagined with care. It also exists to confront the circulation of these objects, calling attention to their harmful legacy while advocating for their removal from commercial markets and their continued placement within museums and institutions as evidence.