My Contemporary Renaissance: Building an Art Practice Between History and the Future

I am deeply inspired by Renaissance painting, but I am not trying to become a Renaissance artist.

I do not want to reproduce the appearance of another century or surround contemporary figures with historical references simply to make them look important. Columns, elaborate drapery, halos, gold and classical architecture can all carry meaning, but those elements alone do not capture what made the Renaissance transformative.

What interests me is the thinking behind the images.

Renaissance artists investigated anatomy, geometry, perspective, architecture, philosophy, engineering, light and the natural world. Their studios were places of observation and experimentation. Painting was not separated from other forms of knowledge. The artist studied widely because every new understanding could influence the work.

That expansive curiosity is what I want to inherit.

I ask myself what Renaissance thinking could mean for an artist working now—particularly a Black British artist creating images through drawing, digital construction, artificial intelligence, photography, specialist printing, raised surfaces, mineral pigments and three-dimensional fabrication.

My aim is not to reproduce the Renaissance. It is to bring its intellectual ambition into the present and allow it to meet cultural histories, technologies and possibilities that Renaissance artists could not have imagined.

What Draws Me to Renaissance Painting

I return repeatedly to Renaissance and Old Master paintings because of the authority with which they organise the visible world.

A figure can stand almost completely still and yet possess enormous presence. The direction of the light, position of the body, arrangement of the hands and relationship between the figure and the surrounding space tell us that this person matters. Nothing is accidental.

Composition directs the eye. Geometry creates order beneath the surface. Colour establishes atmosphere. Clothing communicates status and identity. A small gesture can carry emotional or symbolic meaning. Light can transform a human face into the spiritual and psychological centre of an entire painting.

I am fascinated by the patience behind these images. Their authority was not created by adding more and more detail. It emerged from disciplined decisions. The artist understood where the viewer should look first, which areas should remain quiet and how every part of the composition could support the central subject.

This is important to my own work. Digital technologies make it possible to generate extraordinary complexity. I can combine figures, environments, symbolic objects, geometry, textures and lighting conditions that might never have existed together in physical reality. But possibility is not the same as purpose.

The more I can include, the more carefully I must choose. Renaissance painting reminds me that visual power depends on hierarchy. Every element does not need to compete for attention. The image must know what it is about.

Inheriting the Knowledge Without Inheriting the Limitations

I can admire the achievements of Renaissance and Old Master painting without pretending that these traditions represented everyone equally.

The Western art canon was shaped by systems of power. Black people were often excluded from positions of authority, pushed towards the edges of compositions or presented as servants, curiosities and symbols. Their individuality was frequently considered less important than the role they performed within someone else’s story.

The canon also determined who could be recognised as a master. Talent alone was never enough. Artists needed access to workshops, education, materials, patrons, institutions and systems capable of preserving their names and work. When Black artists were denied that access or written out of historical narratives, their absence from the canon could later be mistaken for an absence of ability. I do not accept that mistake.

At the same time, I do not believe the answer is to abandon historical knowledge. Perspective, composition, colour, anatomy, gesture and material understanding do not belong exclusively to the institutions that once controlled them.

I want to inherit the intelligence of these traditions without inheriting their limitations.

That means redirecting historical visual authority towards people and cultural experiences that were previously denied it. It means placing Black figures at the centre of the image, but it also means going beyond representation.

Simply placing a Black person inside an unchanged European framework is not enough. The deeper question is whether the cultural centre of the image has also changed. Who possesses authority? Whose knowledge shapes the symbols? How is beauty imagined? What relationship exists between the figure, the ancestral world, spirituality, technology and the future?

Cultural Identity Must Shape the Work

I do not want African and diasporic references to function as decorative additions.

Cultural identity should not be applied to an image after its visual system has already been decided. It should affect the work from the beginning: the histories I investigate, the figures I create, the symbols I select, the materials I use and the relationships I establish between the human, ancestral, spiritual and technological.

This requires care and specificity. Africa is not a single visual culture. The diaspora is not one experience. An ancient Egyptian symbol, a Yoruba spiritual reference, a Caribbean pattern and a Renaissance halo cannot be treated as interchangeable signs of heritage. Each carries its own history.

If I bring an Ankh, lotus, geometric system or culturally significant object into an artwork, I need to understand why it is present. I need to consider what it originally meant, what it has come to mean and how its meaning may change inside my work.

That responsibility does not prevent experimentation. It makes experimentation more substantial. I want different traditions to meet without being flattened. The elements should retain enough of their identity to create a meaningful dialogue. That dialogue is central to my contemporary Renaissance.

The Questions That Sustain My Practice

A practice cannot be built around appearance alone. An artist may be able to produce striking images in many styles, but technical ability does not automatically create a coherent body of work. The deeper foundation is a set of questions that the artist cannot easily leave behind.

I continue to ask how historical visual authority can be redirected towards figures previously denied it; what sacred or mythological imagery might become when Black figures occupy its centre; and how African and diasporic knowledge can meet Renaissance composition without either tradition becoming decorative.

I ask whether a digitally constructed image can possess the physical and psychological presence of a painting. I ask how technology can expand artistic imagination without becoming the subject of every artwork, and what mastery means for an artist working across historical methods, digital processes and emerging materials.

These questions give the practice continuity. Individual artworks may explore different figures, materials or visual environments, but they belong to the same developing field of inquiry. My style does not need to be imposed in advance. It grows through my repeated attempts to answer the questions.

Discipline Is the Foundation

Passion begins many artworks. Discipline completes them.

For me, discipline means returning to an image after the first excitement has passed. It means looking again when something is visually impressive but intellectually unresolved. It means removing details I may admire because they do not belong to the central idea.

It also means studying when no immediate result is visible. Researching a symbol, testing a material, correcting anatomy or reorganising a composition may not produce an instant finished artwork. Yet these activities build the knowledge that allows stronger work to emerge later.

There are always stages when the image resists me. A composition may feel unbalanced. The gaze may not carry the intended authority. The clothing may be beautifully rendered but culturally confused. The materials may not respond to light in the way I imagined. A raised texture may overwhelm the image instead of strengthening it.

Discipline is the willingness to remain with the problem rather than covering it with more effects. It is the patience to make another study, test another surface or begin again when necessary.

I do not understand discipline as rigidity. It does not mean repeating the same solution or removing spontaneity from the studio. Discipline creates the foundation from which meaningful experimentation becomes possible.

Passion Is More Than Excitement

I experience artistic passion less as constant excitement and more as an inability to leave certain questions alone.

I return to the human figure because it continues to reveal new possibilities. I return to sacred geometry because I am interested in the relationship between visible form and invisible order. I return to cultural memory because the past is not finished; it continues to influence how people understand beauty, authority, identity and belonging.

I return to material experimentation because I do not want my work to end as an image on a screen. Passion is present in that return.

It is expressed through sustained curiosity, ambitious standards and a willingness to stay with a practice over time. It is visible in the decision to study an unfamiliar process, produce another proof, correct a weak passage or test how a material behaves under different lighting conditions.

Excitement can be immediate. Commitment reveals itself through repetition.

Drawing Is a Way of Thinking

Digital tools can produce enormous visual complexity, but drawing remains fundamental to how I think about images. Drawing slows my attention.

It asks me to understand the weight of a figure, the rhythm of a gesture, the angle of a head and the relationship between one shape and another. It reveals whether the image has a convincing structure beneath its atmosphere, colour and detail.

Before an artwork becomes complex, I need to understand its architecture. Where does the viewer’s eye enter? Which figure holds authority? Where is the centre of gravity? What creates stillness, tension or movement? Does the pose feel deliberate? Does the geometry strengthen the composition, or has it simply been placed on top?

A drawn study does not have to appear visibly in the final work to influence its intelligence. It may provide the underlying structure for digital compositing, help me identify anatomical distortions in AI-generated material or preserve an energy that a highly polished surface might otherwise remove. Drawing remains beneath the finished image as a form of thought.

My Digital Studio Is a Contemporary Workshop

I see my studio as a contemporary workshop. The tools may include screens, software, cameras, printers and generative systems rather than wooden panels, stone grinders and traditional pigment preparations. But the underlying activity remains recognisable. I am testing, observing, correcting, selecting and combining knowledge.

A work may begin with a written idea, drawing or compositional diagram. I may gather photographic material, study historical paintings, investigate cultural references and explore possible settings. Digital tools allow me to build each element independently before bringing them into a coherent relationship.

This flexibility is powerful, but it can also become dangerous. Because almost anything can be added, the image can easily become overcrowded. Every layer may be impressive in isolation while the overall composition loses clarity.

I have to ask what the artwork actually needs. Which detail strengthens the figure? Which symbol deepens the idea? Which effect is present only because the technology made it possible? Digital mastery is not the ability to include everything. It is the ability to choose.

Artificial Intelligence Must Serve Artistic Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has become one of the tools available within my practice. I can use it to explore compositions, test atmospheres, imagine unfamiliar environments and discover visual relationships that may not emerge through traditional sketching alone.

But generating an arresting image is not the same as building an artistic practice. AI can offer options. It cannot determine which option belongs to my developing body of work. It does not possess my relationship to cultural memory, identity, spirituality or artistic ambition. That judgement remains mine.

I have to examine what the system has assumed. I have to notice inconsistent anatomy, confused symbolism, generic beauty, culturally inaccurate clothing, incoherent architecture and surfaces filled with impressive but meaningless detail.

AI does not begin from an empty space. It draws upon patterns formed through existing images, including their exclusions, stereotypes and hierarchies. An AI-generated figure may look beautiful without possessing individuality. A costume may appear African without belonging coherently to any particular culture. A sacred object may be visually convincing while carrying no meaningful relationship to the scene.

Artificial intelligence can produce visual material, but it cannot take responsibility for meaning. My role is to select, correct, combine and transform that material until it belongs to my artistic world. AI must serve artistic intelligence.

The Human Figure as a Presence

I am interested in the human figure not only as a physical form but as a presence. A portrait should do more than record a face. The posture, gaze, clothing, scale and surrounding space should reveal how the figure occupies the world.

I am particularly interested in visual authority. Before we know who a person is, an image can tell us that they matter. A figure placed at a monumental scale, given room to occupy the frame and illuminated with care enters a different relationship with the viewer.

Authority does not have to mean aggression. It can emerge through stillness, composure, privacy or refusal. A direct gaze may confront the viewer. An averted gaze may suggest that the subject’s attention belongs somewhere beyond us. Closed eyes can create protection, meditation or inwardness.

I want the people in my images to feel as though they possess lives beyond the frame. They are not present simply to be admired. They should appear capable of returning the viewer’s attention, withholding themselves or existing independently of the desire to be seen.

Beauty is important to me, but beauty should not remove agency. The figure should possess their beauty rather than being possessed through it.

Sacred Geometry Must Hold the Image Together

Geometry is part of my visual and intellectual vocabulary. Renaissance artists used it to organise perspective, architecture and the human figure. It connected mathematical order to philosophical and spiritual ideas about the structure of the world.

Circles, grids, proportional systems and forms such as the Flower of Life can create unity, expansion, protection and cosmic relationship. Geometry can connect the body to something larger than itself.

But sacred geometry loses its power when it is used only to make an image appear mystical. A geometric pattern should not simply float behind a portrait because it looks spiritually significant. Its scale, placement and repetition need to influence the composition.

Does it emerge from the figure? Does it surround or protect the body? Does it organise the movement of light? Does it connect separate areas of the image? The strongest geometry is often felt before it is consciously identified. It does not sit on top of the artwork. It holds the artwork together.

The Image Must Become an Object

Completing the digital image is only one stage of my process. I want the work to enter physical space.

A digital file has no fixed scale, surface or weight. Printing transforms that fluid image into a particular object. A luminous photographic paper produces a different relationship with light from a textured fine-art sheet. Metal, wood, fabric and acrylic each give the image a different physical presence.

UV printing creates further possibilities. Ink can be deposited in layers, allowing selected parts of the image to rise physically from the surface. A garment, jewel, halo, symbolic object or field of geometry can begin to catch light differently from the surrounding image.

Three-dimensional fabrication can extend parts of the work further. A symbolic or decorative form might be integrated into the frame, constructed as relief or allowed to move beyond the picture plane.

The purpose is not to demonstrate how many technologies I can use. The question is what physical transformation adds to the meaning.

I want the surface to change the viewer’s encounter. Certain details should become visible only when someone approaches. Metallic or mineral elements should respond as the viewer changes position. The physical object should contain something the screen cannot.

Materials Must Carry Meaning

I am drawn to materials that interact actively with light. Gold and silver dust, glass particles, pearlescent finishes, interference pigments, gemstone-derived colours and ultra-black surfaces offer possibilities that ordinary printed colour cannot reproduce.

But I do not want to use these materials simply to signal luxury. Gold can represent sacred illumination, ancestral power, authority or incorruptibility. Deep lapis blue can create a sense of spiritual depth and historical material value. Amethyst tones can carry emotional and symbolic associations. Diamond-like particles can make a passage move between substance and radiance.

Ultra-black can absorb attention, intensify surrounding colour and suggest a space that feels both materially present and visually immeasurable.

Every material needs a reason to be there. If a metallic surface has no relationship to the artwork’s meaning, it becomes decoration. Material intelligence begins with asking why a particular substance belongs to a particular image. When the answer is clear, the material becomes part of the concept.

Texture Needs Hierarchy

Raised texture can give a digitally created artwork a strong physical presence, but it needs restraint. If every area is heavily textured, reflective or raised, nothing feels important. The surface becomes noisy, and the image underneath it may lose its authority.

Texture needs hierarchy in the same way that colour and light do. I might concentrate relief around a figure’s clothing, jewellery, halo or symbolic object. Sacred geometry may rise subtly from the background. A botanical or architectural detail may catch the light while surrounding areas remain quiet.

Contrast allows the material transformation to be noticed. A smooth passage beside a raised surface makes the relief more powerful. A dark, restrained field can make a metallic detail appear luminous. The physical surface should guide attention rather than compete for it.

The Frame Is Part of the Work

The artwork does not end at the edge of the printed image. A frame influences how the work enters physical space and how the viewer understands it. It can connect the piece to the authority of historical painting, emphasise its contemporary construction or create a tension between the two.

An antique-style gold frame around a digitally produced image can bring museum history into contact with emerging technology and previously excluded subjects. But the frame must support the artwork. Highly elaborate ornament may compete with an already complex composition. A more restrained profile can give a visually rich image space to breathe.

Presentation is not a final luxury added to make an artwork appear serious. It is part of the artistic decision-making.

Conservation Begins in My Studio

My material ambitions bring responsibilities. If I combine digital printing, UV texture, metallic powders, pigments, adhesives and fabricated components, I need to understand how those materials may behave over time.

Will the colours fade under strong light? Could metallic particles tarnish? Will an adhesive weaken? Can dust collect inside a raised surface? Could a damaged component be repaired or replaced?

Testing has to become part of the practice. Material samples can be exposed to light, handling and temperature changes before the process is used on a major work. Production records should identify the printer, substrate, ink, coating, pigment, adhesive and finishing process.

Renaissance workshops preserved technical knowledge through practice and transmission. A contemporary studio should record its experiments with equal seriousness.

One Artwork Cannot Carry Everything

I work with an abundance of ideas and possibilities. A single artwork might include portraiture, Renaissance composition, African symbolism, sacred geometry, digital painting, AI-assisted elements, photographic detail, raised texture, metallic finishes, gemstone colour and sculptural framing.

All these elements may belong within my wider practice. They do not all need to appear at equal strength in every work.

One artwork may concentrate on the authority of the human figure. Another may investigate geometry. A third may explore the transition between flat image and physical relief. A fourth may focus on light moving across mineral or metallic surfaces.

The collection can carry more than the individual artwork. Ambition is not demonstrated by including everything. It is revealed through the seriousness with which each decision is developed.

Building a Body of Work

A practice is not established by one successful image. It develops through repeated questions, connected collections, technical research, documentation and critical reflection. It requires enough continuity for the viewer to recognise an artistic world, but enough development for that world to remain alive.

Certain forms and materials continue to return in my work: the human figure, gold, deep blue, sacred geometry, dark reflective spaces and the meeting between antiquity and technology. These elements are becoming part of my visual vocabulary.

But vocabulary must be used to say something. Repetition without development becomes branding. Repetition with changing relationships becomes artistic research.

Across a collection, I can alter the scale of the figure, the intensity of the gaze, the balance between darkness and illumination, the depth of the physical surface or the visibility of the technology. The viewer should recognise the world while discovering that it is still evolving.

The Artist as Researcher, Director and Maker

The familiar image of the artist working alone and entirely by hand describes only one kind of practice. My work requires me to occupy several roles.

As a researcher, I investigate art history, cultural knowledge, symbols, materials and technologies. As a director, I make decisions across a complex production process. As a maker, I draw, compose, edit, test and refine. As a curator of my own process, I decide what should enter the work and what must remain outside it. As a custodian, I document and protect the finished object.

There are also moments when collaboration becomes necessary. Specialist printers, fabricators, framers, photographers and conservators may all contribute knowledge I do not possess alone.

Renaissance masters worked within networks of assistants, craftspeople, patrons and suppliers. Their authorship depended on maintaining the vision and directing the whole. I understand contemporary mastery in a similar way. Mastery lies in integration.

Building Before Permission Arrives

Historical canons can make mastery appear like a title awarded by institutions. Museums, galleries, universities, critics and collectors influence which artists receive recognition. Their support can create important opportunities and help work survive.

But I cannot wait for an institution to provide the intellectual foundation of my practice. The work has to begin before recognition.

My responsibility is to study, experiment, produce finished collections and develop the work to the highest level I can reach. I have to document the process, establish professional standards and create the conditions through which the art can circulate and be understood.

I cannot wait for someone else to tell me that my questions are important enough to pursue. Mastery is not a moment when an artist finally receives permission. It is a way of working.

What My Contemporary Renaissance Means

My contemporary Renaissance is not a revival of European history. It is an expanding artistic space in which historical knowledge, Black presence, African and diasporic cultural intelligence, spiritual inquiry, digital technology and material experimentation can meet on new terms.

It means studying the past without becoming trapped by it. It means using cultural identity to shape the structure of the work rather than decorate its surface. It means working with technology without allowing technology to replace judgement.

It means pursuing beauty without removing individuality or agency. It means using symbolism with knowledge, materials with purpose and ambition with discipline.

New technologies create extraordinary possibilities, but they also raise questions about copyright, cultural appropriation, algorithmic bias, environmental impact, material permanence and the difference between innovation and spectacle. I do not want to celebrate every new tool simply because it is new. I want to investigate it, test it and decide whether it can serve the work.

The Practice I Am Committed to Building

I am building an art practice in which curiosity becomes disciplined.

Historical study gives me knowledge rather than nostalgia. Cultural identity changes the centre of the image. Drawing helps me think. Digital construction expands what I can imagine. Artificial intelligence assists exploration without replacing my judgement.

Printing, pigment, texture and fabrication transform the image into an object. Framing and presentation complete the encounter. Documentation helps the work endure. Each part must strengthen the others.

The finished artwork should not feel like a demonstration of separate techniques. It should feel as though the idea, figure, composition, material and method have become inseparable—as though the work could not have taken any other form.

That is difficult to achieve. It requires patience, technical testing and the courage to remove elements that do not belong. It requires me to move between historical knowledge and contemporary technology without becoming subordinate to either.

But this is precisely where I believe a distinctive practice can emerge.

I am not trying to recreate the Renaissance. I am trying to work with the same scale of curiosity and ambition: to study across disciplines, take the human figure seriously, test the boundaries of materials and use the technologies of my time with judgement and purpose.

My work begins in conversation with the past, but it is not travelling backwards.

I am building towards a visual world that neither the Renaissance nor the digital age could create alone.

That is my contemporary Renaissance. That is the practice I am committed to.