I created this work after Botticelli’s 15th century painting, "The Birth of Venus," for a group exhibition called TEL-ART-PHONE at the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood, CA, curated by art critic, Mat Gleason, founder/editor of Coagula Art Journal, owner of Caogula Curatorial art gallery , Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA. 

This is the first work in a new series of large oil paintings where I take classical European paintings, created during the slave-trade era, and alter them to tell Afro-Caribbean slave stories. The paintings are rich with symbolism of Afro-Cuban folklore and religion, in which Orishas (spirits of the Yoruba religion known as Ifa) are syncretized with Catholic saints.