But wildness is how I had always known her

PROJECTS
STUDIO
FINE ART
ABOUT
CONTACT

BUT WILDNESS IS
HOW I HAD ALWAYS KNOWN HER

PROJECT: Personal Commission

CLIENT: Josiah McDonald

YEAR: 2021

The artwork reimagines the biblical narrative of Eve and Adam through a contemporary lens, presenting a deeply personal portrait of a couple whose identities are interwoven with the artist’s symbolic visual language. Set within a dense, abundant landscape, the figures stand as modern archetypes of origin, autonomy, and coexistence. Their presence affirms Black identity not as a singular symbol but as a living, evolving narrative grounded in dignity, tenderness, and mutual recognition. The surrounding vegetation evokes a primordial garden that is neither innocent nor fallen, but conscious and alive, reflecting a space of choice, knowledge, and self definition.

Elements drawn from Stefania Tejada’s recurring imagery inhabit the scene as carriers of meaning rather than decoration. Gestural hands emerge from the foliage, suggesting protection, guidance, temptation, and inherited memory. Animals move quietly within the composition as guardians of instinct and ancestral wisdom, while fruits and organic forms reference desire, sustenance, and transformation. The couple’s physical closeness and calm gaze resist dramatization, emphasizing partnership over hierarchy and presence over myth. By blending personal portraiture with collective symbolism, the work reclaims the origin story as one of agency and shared becoming, offering a vision of Eve and Adam rooted in intimacy, resilience, and the freedom to define one’s own beginning.