I have made it my mission to visit as many countries on the African Continent as time and funds permit. I am inspired to paint the energy of each experience.

My travels on the African continent have taken me south to South Africa, and Namibia where Dr. Debbie Sanders developed a program called Study Abroad in Africa to send University students from Historically Black Colleges to study for a semester at South African Universities. The students received credit for the course work required at that point in their academic career. Lincoln University was our school of record which facilitated the acceptance of credits between the Universities in the United States, and Africa. This program was a labor of love for Dr.Sanders, and I was proud to be apart of this reintroduction of young African Americans to the Mother continent. Therefore, I not only expose the viewer to the experience of The Ancestors through my art, but I do everything in my power to impress upon African Americans how returning to our African origins is a gift that we must all give ourselves. Few things give me more pleasure than sharing the stories of my travels on the African continent with young people! I want them to get fired up, and maybe skip France or England and go home to our Mother continent at least once.

My goal is to debunk hegemony, the misinformation which a vast majority of my people allow them to think less of their ancestral home.

I have delivered as honest and pure views on this subject as I currently have words to match the feelings in my heart. It is my prayer that as you view my work that you will not so much judge it for technique ( my work tends to look very whimsical, with strong messages), but for my heart, and the hearts of my Ancestors that were surely broken in life, but who celebrate each time a brother, a sister, a child, or cousin of theirs Returns Home!

Featured Artist Joe Gilmore in a Creative Conversation

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