I’m a visual storyteller. My stories center around black kids in the early 1980’s, the decade of my youth. Inspired by boyhood memories of the housing project where I lived from kindergarten through the sixth grade, I create imagery that deals with community, friendship and, the joy of childhood.
Collage is the perfect medium through which to tell my stories because it involves bringing together separate items and creating harmony, cooperation and, unity among the individual parts, much like the community I remember.
I use painted paper, found paper, and newspaper. Working mostly on wooden surfaces, I sand down built-up layers of paper to create visual and tactile texture which allude to the history of the space, object or, figure. I also draw and paint over collaged pieces or divide the composition up between collaged, drawn and, painted areas. Staples, screens (plastic and metal), string, wire, and fabric are all tools I use to create visual movement or volume.
I remember reading a lot as a kid and I searched for books about kids like me and my friends from places like the housing projects where we lived. I’My imagery are the pages from that picture book I could never find as a kid.
-Melvin Nesbitt Jr
Collage is the perfect medium through which to tell my stories because it involves bringing together separate items and creating harmony, cooperation and, unity among the individual parts, much like the community I remember.
I use painted paper, found paper, and newspaper. Working mostly on wooden surfaces, I sand down built-up layers of paper to create visual and tactile texture which allude to the history of the space, object or, figure. I also draw and paint over collaged pieces or divide the composition up between collaged, drawn and, painted areas. Staples, screens (plastic and metal), string, wire, and fabric are all tools I use to create visual movement or volume.
I remember reading a lot as a kid and I searched for books about kids like me and my friends from places like the housing projects where we lived. I’My imagery are the pages from that picture book I could never find as a kid.
-Melvin Nesbitt Jr