My Journey
I am PANTHRO, Cleveland based sculpture artist. My name comes specifically from the cartoon Thundercats. Growing up this was one my favorite cartoons, Panthro was a black coded character that ran shit behind the scenes like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark but he had swag too. I see myself as this person because my practice is a combination of traditional and digital art harmonized together.
Art is my passion now but not always has been. In high school leading up college I was studying to be nurse. My last semester before going to undergrad I realized it wasn’t a career that I could do long term. There was this weird few month period where I didn’t know what I was going to do or what I was good at. Initially I started drawing as a way to relieve stress and found enough joy within it to think I would doing to attend undergrad as an Art major.
During this year I took a painting and sculpture class and instantly fell in love with sculpture and the many things I could do with it. The following year I transferred to Cleveland Institute of Art where I graduated with a BFA in sculpture and expanded media.
Within my practice I work with many mediums such as fashion, video, and collage. Oftentimes these mediums complement one another in a streamline process where a finished product acts as a base for another. Futuristic Bowwow encompasses the way not only the way I see my work visually but also shows the diversity of materials I enjoy working with.
The project is a 7 min afrofuturistic short film celebrating black culture through reference while also talking about self identity and the ways I feel about myself . The video is a world building experience with all custom made pieces made specifically for the world. The clothing and props seen within the project was all made by hand for the idea of making personas where I then 3D scanned myself to made them into digital assets to animate. The music was also made by me as well. This is my ideal project, directing a video where the clothing, music, and set is all made by me.
