Statement

Over the course of his life

Tra` has come to realize that his art is not a private conversation; rather art is a communal experience. As a result, he aims to create powerful and persuasive art with a social function, that challenges our understanding of the world in which we live and how we operate within it.

As an artist, he is a reflector, translator, and mediator of societal issues, including racial and gender inequality, civil rights, globalization, environmental crisis, greed, cultural and social identity.

Tra` creates works that act as windows, providing insight and focus on complex subjects, while offering his unique interpretations, and raising difficult questions.

His most recent body of work can be described as Expressive Assemblage consisting of found materials with symbolic potency reborn to tell their stories in mixed media paintings and assemblage sculptures.

Every piece he creates has numerous interwoven layers of stories and experiences that can only be seen by returning and looking even deeper. When the viewer seeks to understand the story behind a piece of his work, they begin to remember a forgotten history and their part in that history.

Art is a language everyone can understand, and I believe it has the power to save us all.
— Tra' Slaughter