CowBoy anD hero

2025
Mixed Media, Acrylic on cardboard
41 × 49 in

As a child, I always wondered why we were never portrayed heroically in the Western. Cowboy and Hero is my answer to that question. Wearing an oversized cowboy hat patterned with Haitian peppers, the young Black child looks upward with quiet confidence, reclaiming a place in a mythology from which Black children were often absent. Although Black cowboys played a significant role in shaping the American West, they were rarely centered in the stories many of us grew up watching. Through childhood imagination, the painting restores that missing image, reminding us that every child deserves to see themselves as the hero of the adventure. Layered with Haitian symbolism, stars, and expressive marks, Cowboy and Hero bridges heritage and possibility, celebrating the power of representation and the limitless worlds a child's imagination can create.