Cosmic Love

Banko St-Leger

Interview by L. Valena

February 16, 2023

Can you start by describing the prompt that you responded to?

The prompt I responded to was an eyeball with what looked like a pizza flying away. It had a nice cerulean blue background with leaves embedded into it. I wasn't expecting something so abstract in nature.

What were your first thoughts and feelings?

When I look at a piece of artwork, I like to really sit down with it and reflect. What has the artist created that is deeper than what I actually see? This piece gave me the sense of looking at myself and reflecting, visually, on my emotions. I just kept looking at the prompt, and asking myself, "What is going on in my life? What am I seeing beyond what I actually see?"

And what was that?

The piece that I made is one of the furthest depths I've reached into myself. To really pull out what I'm really feeling at this moment. I’m in a situation of liking someone, who knows I like them. It's so conflicting to see them on a day-to-day basis, and not be in a relationship with them. It's infuriating and also very sad. I was drawing on my own emotions, which I haven't been able to express. Looking at the prompt, the blue background really reminded me of this person's eyes. It has a mixture of blue and green. So I'd see the prompt, and then I'd see her, and it was just this back and forth. I felt like I was drowning every time.

I hadn't thought about it before, but there is definitely a quality of longing in the prompt. Is that what you were seeing?

Yes. It also gave me the sense of a jellyfish. Knowing how jellyfish swim, they swim in a bundle, but there's also that singular aspect of just being alone. Unlike other fish or animals, jellyfish don't have any actual physical connections that you get yo see. Noticing that longing that I felt, and having this sense of distance, was just so confusing. It was easier to paint, and put my emotions into a piece, and paint what I feel rather than what I see.

Once you had collected your feelings and knew what you wanted to express, how did you decide how to express that?

The three aspects of the prompt that spoke to me were the eyeball, the blue and the green. The blue and the green reminded me of the girl's eyes, and every time I see her it feels like I'm drowning. I feel like a jellyfish surrounded by the ocean. When I was thinking about this piece, I knew I wanted to use blue for the background. You'll notice that there are different shades -- slightly green to dark purple. The base color I used was cerulean blue, and mixed it with other colors to get these different aspects of emotions.

If you look deeper into the square, there are two entities. I believe every person in this world is a reflection of one another, and we all keep each other balanced. Yin and yang. But also the aspect of interracial relationships, being a Black man and having affection for a white woman in a society where racial demographics can be quite problematic, really set the tone of the intertwining of this loving relationship as where you see the grey in between. We look at love as black and white, and don't really focus on the grey matter that's created through relationships. It may not be in terms of skin tone, but it may be about combining individuals to create this grey space. Here these two entities create an abundance of love.

I found the surface for this piece outside of my work! And as I said, I work with this individual. So it felt like this canvas found me. The previous artist had cemented clay to the canvas, which is what gives this piece that sense of texture. I broke away the pieces that I didn't want, and it left me with this small box, which I put the entities in. Again, going back to the idea of drowning in emotions.

That's so cool -- you found this canvas? Amazing, it's like the universe just delivered exactly what you needed.

It's not the first time it's delivered me something, so I'm a really big believer in that. Every human we meet is a reflection of ourselves. When you meet someone negative, they're just an aspect of yourself that's reflecting back onto you, and it's up to you to decide how to respond to that. I always want to respond with love, because I never want any other energy to come back towards me. One of my favorite themes is a theory by John Locke, tabula rasa, or blank slate. As human beings, we don't really learn about the world until we experience it. We do have instinctual things that are given to survive as creatures, but when it comes to experiences, we're just a blank slate, learning as we go. We see these individuals as whole mirrors, but in reality they're fractured pieces that all create a mirror. There are little cracks and blemishes, there's no perfection in ourselves. Noticing that, and seeing how we reflect on one another, really prompts each piece of art that I make in its entirety.

I totally agree with that. I really believe that all the people we surround ourselves with reflect a different aspect of ourselves, and that we end up becoming an amalgamation of those people.

They say that you become like the five people you hang around with most. So if you hang around with five drug addicts, you'll be the sixth. If you hang around with five scholars, you'll be the sixth. If you hang around with five billionaires, you'll become the sixth. Your environment really dictates the choices in which your reality can come into fruition. I think even in my painting, that's what I'm trying to communicate. Not just with my own emotions. When I create these pieces, I want others to really reflect on themselves, and understand what their lives are really about. What are they really trying to achieve? I feel like social media and the fabrication of our society really strips away individualism and the act of living as people.

How was this process for you? Did you enjoy responding to a prompt like this?

At first it was difficult, because it was something new. As a kid, when you don't understand something, you're met with this nudging feeling. "Am I going to fail? Am I going to succeed?" Then I took a moment to sit back and really breathe and relax, and just allowed myself to feel. I visit galleries a lot. An artist gave me the best advice, which every artist needs to hear: “Don't paint what's going to sell, paint what you feel.” Once she said that, the entire piece came quicker than I expected.

While I was working on this, I would go to work and see this girl every single day. I couldn't not make this piece; my emotions are tugging every time I wake up. I honestly finished the piece on Valentine's Day, and in the process of me finishing this piece, reality changed the same way. It's interesting as an artist. If you believe in the concept of God or the power of the universe, we are simply part of this bigger consciousness. Things will happen in such a weird way, that when you create a moment, it can have a ripple effect. After a while it just became easy, and I was eager to finish it. I was really painting what I felt, and not what I thought everyone else was going to like. I showed a couple of people, and some didn't like it. Some loved it. Even the people who didn't like it saw something in it. They were confused, and felt some kind of emotion. I definitely appreciate having the ability to be able to do this.

I feel like the world kind of comes to me. It's not just about the interracial relationship and dealing with the act of racism, but also looking at my past and trying to be in the present to create a better future. If I sit in the past for too long, I'll become depressed. If I sit in the future too long, I'll become anxious. So my goal is to stay in the present. As I stare at the canvas, I usually have it at my bedside. I wake up to it every single day, and can reflect on the emotions. Do I feel the same way I feel as I did yesterday? It allows me to really embody myself and my experience into the painting. That way it becomes an actual artwork.

It's so cool that you have your work right by your bed! I think there's a tension sometimes about how close we want our work to be, and it sounds like you have decided to just let it, in all the way. That's pretty inspiring.

What made me really want to become an artist was a quote from a movie: "To become a great artist, you need to separate your living space from your studio, because you will gain inspiration from moving from one space to another." Although my living space and studio are in the same space, I go and experience life and come back to the studio. So at first it's my living space, then when I come back at the end of the day it's my studio, when I go to sleep it becomes a living space again. Then I go and repeat the cycle.

So many of us work out of our houses -- do you have any tips on how to make your space feel more like a studio when you're working and more like a living space when you're sleeping?

Don't stay in your room. You have to miss your space. On a day off, most people will stay home all day, and they can't figure out why they can't get any inspiration. You have to actually experience life in order to put your experience into a painting. It really separates a person who can paint and an artist. There's artists that can really draw, and can make amazing portraits, but don't really feel any emotions from it because they haven't gone outside and, for example, seen someone's eyebrow twitch in a certain way. Not only is it the intrinsic details within the picture, but how does the bigger picture reflect on your emotional state? To separate that, the best way is to step outside and not stay cooped up in the room. Every artist's process is different. For me, it works to have my work at my bedside. I can wake up, paint, then leave the room. When I come back, I have experienced something totally different, and the first thing I want to do as soon as I get home is paint. I don't write a diary, I paint a diary.

If I can say one thing about painting, it's to sit down and really look at yourself. Look at what you're trying to create. Rather than trying to please anyone. I think a lot of artists get stuck in their head -- am I going to be good enough? Am I better than the next artist? I don't compare myself with anyone else, I'm just trying to be better than I was yesterday. Other artists have their own complicated lives, and if I try to be better than them, I lose myself. I actually just started painting last year, and I've learned how important it is to put my emotional state and experience into the piece. I literally can't repeat it enough: just get outside.

Do you have any other advice for an artist approaching this project for the first time?

Do the work. Consistency brings every product. The minute you slack, doubt yourself, and think outside of what you're trying to create, you start messing up the work. It's really simple. I think people try to overcomplicate things with other ideas. If you want to create something, create what you feel. Do the work. Then everyone else can feel what you're trying to say. Having bad and great experiences is a blessing. It's always about the journey, not about the destination. The destination will always be there.

Call Number: Y99VA | Y101VA.stCo

Banko St-Leger: I spent most of my youth traveling from one New York State town to another after being born on a military base to serving parents, I finally decided to settle in Brooklyn. Being a self-taught photographer since 2019, I translate my vision from lens to canvas. Gaining inspiration from childhood trauma, past and present relationships, and the difficulties black males face in America. These real-life situations serve as the foundations for my work, connecting them like a symphony. Amongst the numerous painters who have affected me in how I represent the views of a black man in a white world are Basquiat, Pollock, and Picasso. The intention is to provoke a dialogue within the observer about the dividing idealisms that surround our current state of mind, emotions, and physical condition.