SERINITY KNIGHT

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

by William Ernest Henley [1849-1903]

In life there are many factors that affect a persons perceptions, feelings, and indeed their values and future directions. Born I was in West Michigan of AFRICAN-NATIVE-EUROPEAN AMERICAN ANCESTRY. I have traveled all over this world as a woman, as an artist who happened to be born into the BLACK experience - that is my inheritance and my birthright. Raised with a strong emphasis on self empowerment and self-determination through education, sports and the arts, I was encouraged to not follow the trail of others but to create my own path. Often laughing within myself wondering how I might have turned out if I had followed the others into mediocrity?

I'm a mixed-media figurative artist. sculptor. painter. writer. printmaker. illustrator. fashion designer. photographer. glass maker. exhibition specialist . educator. engineer . shamanic spiritual healer. truth is my medicine.

My [ART]can be classified as Contemporary Figurative Surrealism [AFRO-FUTURISTIC]: as they are sensationalized images – of materialized emotions that are not sustained in reality and free from any complex intellectual pretensions. The work is not all personal or self portraits but an extension of my personality and thoughts, [good or bad]. Paradoxically they are also a mirror, reflecting the viewer's own mind and perceptions back at them as my main concern is communication rather than entertainment. I want others to experience where my mind has been, what I have felt and wondered, suffered and enjoyed. I would like to welcome all who visit me here a glance into my continuing narrative series: "The BUTTERFLY MONOLOGUES of A RED NEGRESS: Chosen Vessels of Diasporic Revelations, [the AGONY and the EXSTASY] of a Nomadic Journey of Wanderlust and Self Discovery. SK

Serinity is an emerging artist profes