Behind the Canvas: The Story of Najja

This post delves into the beginning of it all, what my art is about, and where its going.

A series of my first sketches. Circa 2007-2013

Learning to Disappear Before I Learned to Paint

I was born in Abington, PA, and raised in the neighboring town of Cheltenham. Both are a little over 10 miles from Philadelphia. And before I ever learned how to introduce myself, I learned how to disappear.

Not physically, but emotionally, mentally, and psychologically.

I grew up in a seven-person household. Youngest of 6 siblings. And if you’ve never lived in one, it’s hard to explain what that does to a kid who needs the space to understand themselves. There was always sound, movement and someone else’s emotions leaking into the room. Privacy wasn’t something that you received; it was something you invented in your head.

So I drew.

Not because I thought I was talented. It was the only way that I could leave without going anywhere. All I initially had at the time was pencil, some charcoal, and oil pastel from time to time. That was it. No art stores full of choices. I wasn’t “choosing” minimalism or restraint; I was just working with what existed in front of me.

Drawing Wasn’t a Hobby.  It Was a Coping Mechanism

A lot of people talk about art like it’s a passion they discovered. For me, it was more like a reflex. Something my body did before my mind could catch up. I wasn’t trying to necessarily express myself. I was trying to self regulate. Hence why my earlier subject matter as well as the creative aliases that I went by were very... random.

Growing up, I didn’t have language for what I felt. I didn’t know words like “overstimulated,” “anxious,” or “emotionally crowded.” I just knew that being alone felt safer, and drawing was the fastest way to get there.

I spent years drawing figures that felt half-there. Faces that looked like they were hiding. Bodies that didn’t quite belong to themselves. At the time, I thought I was just experimenting. Now I know I was documenting how it felt to grow up without space.

Untitled under alias, "Hadeez." Colored pencil on paper. August 27th, 2013

I Didn’t Know the Art World Existed. That Changed Me.

I had no idea that art would be my calling.

It wasn't until I sat in a fine arts class in middle school that I met my first mentor and inspiration, Mr. Bevan McShea. Our class was.. energetic, to say the least. But I was a quiet student. Sitting close to the back. Ears perked. Readily anticipating every lesson. Every studio time. Every video.

One day Mr.McShea stopped me after class and asked me if I wanted to participate in a spring art class for the youth hosted by Moore Art College in Downtown Philadelphia. He handed me a flyer and I dashed home.

My mother signed me up for spring Animation classes that ran during spring break in 2008. My oldest brother Michael made sure I got there safely because my dad was sick at the time.

I was there for approximately 3 weeks and I would still credit that course to my innate "style" of surrealism. I always enjoyed the playfulness of animation but also how they can have a close likeness to the real world in a unique way.

I started to act out after my father's death in 2009, so the drawing kind of slowed down. It wasn't until I snuck into an abandoned art college in 2011 with some unsavory "friends" that my eyes were opened in a different way. I saw torn canvases. old easels, hardened paint brushes, and empty gesso cans lying across the studios. As the group I was with ventured on throughout the school, I stayed behind.

They saw trash. I saw rubies.

And from there, All I could think about was learning what these materials were.

And learning how to paint.

When I finally did experience the art world in my early twenties, it felt like a culture shock.

Color Felt Like a Risk. And I Took It Anyway

The first time I worked seriously with oil and acrylic was in 2019 after I discharged from the military. It was pretty fun. However, I initially had no control over the use of color. It felt uncontrollable. It didn’t hide the way graphite did. It demanded attention.

And that terrified me.

But it also woke something up inside of me.

Where drawing had been about protection, painting required release. I started relying more on sensation. I wasn’t trying to show what things looked like anymore. But what it felt like to live inside my head.

Dream logic made sense to me. Distortion made sense. Bodies bending, faces splitting, environments collapsing into each other. To me, it wasn’t a fantasy. It was my autobiography.

I started using imagery to talk about things I still couldn’t say out loud. Family dynamics. Social pressure. Identity. Memory. Trauma. and even sprinkle in a bit of humor. I feel like being absurd sometimes is the only way to survive honesty. 

Untitled Commissioned Art WIP, circa 2021.

Letting People See the Work Meant Letting Them See Me

Showing my work publicly was very exciting but equally scary.

My first exhibition was in 2020 at Sulfur Studios in Savannah, GA. It was a public installation called, "Misogynoir and Other Synonyms". As you can see I started off strong. However, I did feel exposed. These weren’t just paintings to me. They were internal documents. Evidence of how I thought  and processed prejudices during at that time of my life.

The style of the work spoke similar to my thoughts, they were loud, chaotic, and emotionally charged. I didn't participate much in that exhibition. Didn't do a meet and greet at that time. Just promoted my work and went about my day. Something I slightly regret to this day. 

However, it wasn't until I began doing group exhibitions at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) that i understood how to deliver and communicate feedback and critiques, thus creating a dialogue with art instead of isolating with it. Art finally became a catalyst in connecting with others.

I don’t think I fully processed that until much later.

Press, Recognition, and the Fear of Being Misunderstood

Press releases are... interesting. Some are impromptu, some are prepared beforehand. They have a way of making an artist sound so confident and resolved even when we're not. I've done about 6 features so far that have described my work, and when I re-read one, there’s a moment where I think, Was that really me?

Recognition is validating, but it’s also destabilizing. When other people define your work, you have to decide which interpretations you accept and which you gently reject. You can learn quickly that being seen doesn’t necessarily mean being understood.

and that’s okay. What matters is honesty that you're making.

I honestly don’t paint to impress. I paint to stay connected to myself. To hold memory and imagination in the same frame. And to turn intuition into form.

Group Exhibition during COVID at Augusta Airport, January 6th, 2022

Taking on The World One Canvas At A Time

To an extent, I am shaped by where I came from. By the household that taught me to internalize. By the years of drawing quietly while the world moved around me. By the late entry into a conversation that had already been happening without me.

But I don’t resent that anymore.

It gave me a visual language that's rooted in introspection. It gave me patience. It gave me the ability to sit with discomfort long enough to transform it. Surrealism wasn’t an aesthetic choice for me

It was survival refined into form.

I don’t know where this journey ends, and I don’t think it’s supposed to. What I do know is that every painting is still doing what that first sketch did: Which is creating space where there wasn’t any.

And this time, I’m not disappearing inside it.

I’m letting others in.