THE RIDE OUT

The Ride Out Project is a Mural and Mini Documentary project that explores and celebrates ride culture. The project focuses on motorbikes/ATVs, horseback riding, and bicycle riding as a community form and legacy in Philadelphia, particularly for the Philadelphia Black and Brown communities. This project elevates and honors these forms of community gathering and their multigenerational intersectionality.

ILE OMI

le Omi: House of Water is a projection-mapped installation. It is inspired by intersectional African Diasporic culture, West African culture, and chronophysics, the field of physics that specifically deals with the concept of time and time travel.

GOING PLACES + DIY PRINTING

We are thinking about how do we incorporate history, tradition, and technology as tools that help tell stories that inspire. Sometimes we just need to see ourselves in glorious alternative ways.

This collection of work envisions progress, movement, internal or external but mostly focuses on imagining how we get to our ideal scenarios.

KEEP GOING

This location specific piece is located in an incredible motel project called @arteloksq located in Kennett Square.
In the 19th century, the borough played an instrumental role in the Underground Railroad and we decided to uplift this story and pay homage to Harriet Tubman...and encourage everyone to keep going!

CLEARLY FOR WARBY PARKER

We are so excited to announce our recent work with Warby Parker.

This piece entitled 'Clearly' was created for the new Marietta Georgia location.

You can check it out in person at the brand new store location located at 3625 Dallas Hwy #615, Marietta, GA 30064

SHE IS HERE

We decided to play a little bit on this one. This piece is entitled "She is here: A Declaration for Bed Study" We had a ton of fun painting our third outdoor mural in Brooklyn. This mural features our lines triangles and a few of the characters we've been developing through our soft space series.

TRANSITIONS

Over the summer we were invited by Sprocket Murals to create a mural in York, Pennsylvania. We did a little bit of research and realized the area is in quite a bit of transition. We wanted to channel this into this new piece and title transitions and with it, we decided to incorporate our signature triangles representing balance along with portions of various faces blending one into the other.

QUANTUM LEAP

"Quantum Leap" is a bold and dynamic 10x22ft mural that embraces a future-leaning perspective while paying tribute to the vibrant individuals who energize the heart of Philadelphia. Through a vivid interplay of colors, we celebrate the city's resilience and authenticity. This artwork weaves a narrative of travel, migration, and constant movement, deeply embedded in the city's ethos. By juxtaposing the present city skyline with visionary architectural elements, the piece beckons viewers to envision a boundless and progressive urban landscape.

LET’S PLAY

Let's Play is a celebration of this gathering space at the Shipyard in Green Bay. It features the branding colors and font in a geometric arrangement, as well as some of the endangered species in the area, including the gray wolf and whooping crane, and white-tailed deer.

OTHERWORLD

We've been on a big world-building kick and often spend a lot of time imagining various futures this piece and bodies it through its mural, which is black light responsible along with the tufted panels. We wanted to concentrate on slow transitions. The lighting in the room transitions from bright light to black light.

MZ & DORITOS

In route to another project we had to pop by our studio to pick up this beautiful press release package of our partnership with Doritos. We couldn't be more thrilled to help celebrate this year's change makers and elevate all of the cool work they're doing and celebrate it with this beautiful packaging. The artwork's theme is all about Thriving!

GEM OF THE LAKE

Did you know that? Erie, Pennsylvania is known as the gem of the lake. We had the honor of creating this mural in celebration of this legacy in Erie, PA.

For this piece, we tapped into the energy of water, and the literal depictions of gems and wanted to reframe the narrative of Gem on the lake to be a celebration of the people being the gems of Erie.

HEAVY DISTORTION

Heavy Distortion is an augmented reality project celebrating the influence of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She is most known for a technique called heavy distortion. This piece aims to immerse the experiencer in heavy distortion.

MISED TOUR

In 2018-19 the Mz.Icar Collective was incredibly honored to collaborate with Ms. Lauryn Hill to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her iconic album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Our team was commissioned to design a collection of limited edition scarves, tees, and merchandise for the 20th-anniversary tour, and we lent our creative skills in the form of visuals for the world tour. 

SOFT SPACES + THE FITLER

The crew and are so very excited to announce that we are Artists in Residency @fitlerclub.

As part of the residency, we are exhibiting an installation and a series of photo illustrations from our new Soft Space series. Each print is a combination of traditional photography and AI. All pieces have an AR component which allows the viewers to experience the prices come to life and talk.

BACK TO THE SOURCE

n honor of 20 years of indigenous hip hop in Uganda, @babaluku invited a group of extremely talented spoken word artists to commune with incredible local artists in Uganda. We had the chance to tag along with @toughdumplin and document the whole experience.

SOFT STUDIES & YAB

We were in an incredible group show called Drip! Drop! Slice! At You are Beautiful in Chicago @yabsticker it was curated by Christopher Jobson of @Colossal

MZ BK XBOX

Some of you may remember that under a different iteration, we used to be on the streets of New York City almost every weekend vending, selling bizarre handmade upcycled goods and artwork before there was language and context behind what we were doing. This event took us back to the early/mid 2000s and had us thinking about our journey.

POSSIBLY CONNECTED

We used artificial intelligence to compose this portrait. It was created by inputting a series of complicated prompts to specify style content, light color, and composition. All of these prompts had to account for and work around biases that are evident in the algorithms for the AI generator.

WHEN IN GERMANY

We were invited to Flöha, Saxony, Germany along with a bunch of other incredible artists to transform this closed paper factory into a playground of creativity for this year's @ibug.art festival

NEW GROWTH

We were invited to Edmond OK to create this piece for Sunny Dayz mural festival. We decided to focus on New Growth. The term new growth is often associated with chemically-altered textured hair and transitioning hair, new growth is often easily detected...

INVISIBLE MAN

Invisible Man was commissioned for Oklahoma City’s Plaza Wallz Festival. It honors the legacy of the author Ralph Ellison and his book Invisible Man. The mural has an augmented reality component and is animated upon activation.

Location: 1708 N Indiana Ave, Oklahoma City OK

THE FULL SET: THEIR FLOWERS Edition

For BLINK we will be designing a new set of Electric Nails entitled 'Their Flowers'

The 'Full Set' is a playful origin story that plays with the complex intersectionality of American Culture. This piece creates a reason to gather, connect, and celebrate Blackness.

PERSPECTIVES

We had the pleasure of experiencing Walnut Hills from a 'people's first perspective'. It was eye-opening to learn about the history of the area, the legacy of the people, and the hopes for the future that people have. We sat down and chatted with people who are vested in Walnut Hills and learned about their hopes and dreams and aspirations for the future.

SOLID BLACK

We are thrilled to have lent our skills to Doritos Solid Black Initiative. For this project we created a piece called Legacy. It's featured on a limited edition bag available at select Sam's Club and on Snacks.com. We are channeling call and response. We are channeling 'throw it back'. We are channeling raising the vibration through a collective consciousness. This piece is a love letter saying, ' I see you. We see you. We see us.'

COMMONWEALTH

This piece is an ode to Bahamadia's lyricism and contribution to music. Her song 'CommonWealth' may have been the first hip-hop track that I ever heard that spoke to the culture of just how resourceful, creative, and innovative the average chick around the way is. I wanted to mirror that energy back into this piece in an imaginative way.

BANK SERIES

Grills speak to a particular value structure and bucking of respectability politics. The history of America is not kind when it comes to banks and financial institutions in relationship to black people, examples of this can be seen in redlining, the Tulsa massacre and discriminatory laws put into place after the reconstruction period And overall income inequality. Many aesthetic values are created out of being ostracized from mainstream society, but they are also examples of expression, practices and aesthetics that have been incredibly preserved.

RESPECT ON HER NAME

Over the last few years, we've had the privilege of sharing our experience, vision, and stories with community in the form of large murals. We have been literally taking up space. This collection is a mashup of all of these past public art pieces. It's a bold celebration of color, Blackness, femme energy, and the ancestors who may not have had the autonomy that we practice but taught us how to practice it.

IMAGINE MURAL

We are thrilled to share our latest and greatest mural located in Coney Island's Luna Park this 3-story beauty is one of our largest yet. It's titled IMAGINE. This project has been a year in the making...and the front of the Cyclone (see pictures)...well that was about 2 days...time is funny like.

REPRESENT EXHIBITION

Let's chat about this upcoming show Paradigm Gallery. It's a group show with the incredible Nazeer Sabree titled #REPRESENT.

We will be exhibiting new works on canvas, tufted pieces and mixed media pieces from our 'In Us We Trust' series. This series is a cheering on of all that is is us. We will be the change, hope, future, architects, value moderator and archivists of culture. This work is a playful celebration of this declaration.

MZ HOMEGOING

When most of the work you do is an acute examination of proportions and relationships it's important to dig into that on a personal intimate level...and it's not always easy to do this work. We world build in our art as a way of escape as well as find inspiration...but these relationships require us to do the grounding part and that's not always easy. This trip was all that stuff.

Fly2.0

he future is what we make, manifest, dream, put intention and or action into combined with the will of the universe. This piece represents that growth journey and possibility. It's a stoic unyielding recentering of power and value.

The allocatia (elephant ear plant) is considered the tree that grows to the sky.

MUSEUM OF BLACK JOY

To Imagine & Ritualize an Opulent Black Future…
A month-long, curated series of virtual prompts, performances, queries, artistic interventions, and intergenerational gatherings to consider topics related to Black Joy, defined here as a revolutionary process and practice.

GET IT TOGETHER

Can you believe it? We completed a mural in mid-November in Boston...Global warming is so real. Our collective was awarded this mural commission through Boston's Transformative Art Agenda. We had a chance to engage with the local community here their stories and aspirations.

LOVE+GRIT STOREFRONTS

The campaign, an extension of VISIT PHILADELPHIA’s popular Love + Grit podcast, reinvigorates the city’s empty storefronts by transforming them into art installations. The Love + Grit Storefronts Project spotlights Philly’s talented QBIPOC artists and innovative Black and Brown-owned businesses. In the citywide public art installation, each artist has turned an empty storefront into an expression of pride, supporting a business adversely affected by the pandemic and showcasing the potential of storefronts available for lease.

THE FULL SET

We did the damn thing. @kendrasteppdavis and the whole collective came to show all the way out! The Full Set is HERE! @theculurerooms is HERE....and we are very extra.

Huge gratitude to all of our peeps old and new that came out to support, chill and celebrate The Full Set. Big shout out to the universe for granting us a summer day in October.

BET MURAL: SINCE DAY

This piece is an exploration of rhythm and movement. It is an ode and mirror of trends, styles, and expressions of culture that we've shared and continue to share with the world. It's a bold celebration of us. 'Since Day' visual depicts the grit, flow, and beautiful connections that swirl throughout Philadelphia. We are inspired by the stories, community, music, and soul of this city. We hope to reflect that back in this piece.

FLUIDITY MURAL

SUMMER OF 2021: This piece is called FLUIDITY
and it's hella big.

Have you ever listened to the 'slave' narratives recorded in conjunction with the WPA project? If not, stop scrolling and listen now. The sounds of the ancestors voices recalling there experiences of basically being responsible for the physical embodiment of wealth in this nation is chilling.

OF EXPANSION

We made a movie...a short one...but still a movie! And it won Best Experimental film in the Imagine This Women's Film Festival!

'Of Expansion' is a short film inspired by quarantine musings and art-making. Here's the website for the film

This is a trippy studio visit follows 2 puppets through a time and space distorted art exhibition. The visit features a collection of collages, photography, banners, textile studies, and mixed media pieces exploring 'what is the ideal scenario and how do we get there?'

SEE ME MURAL

Stay Up. Get right. Love up on yerself and each other.

just a lil reminder located in a city I love.

This piece came together quickly, which is usually a sign of being in flow / frequency with things/ people / energy combined. The goal is to ride that.

THE VISIONARY IN YOU MURAL

Our intention with all of these murals is to create large love letters that encourage people to connect, unite, feel empowered and seen.

The way folks connect with spaces is very important. These spaces are/were designed. they are/were intentionally created for various uses and when they fall into decay ruin or abandonment it's important that we understand that these can be repurposed. It's also imperative to know that the same applies in our own personal communities and spaces.

ART AUCTION

“Homesick Philly” Black Art Auction Curated By Chill Moody And Atim Annette Oton Is The First Auction To Celebrate Philadelphia Black Artists Whose Work Speaks To The Creative, Vibrant Stories, Street, Fashion And Visual Culture Of The City. 

ROADMAP TO JOY EXHIBITION

Roadmap to Joy is a public art exhibition curated by Atiba T. Edwards @at1ba and Mz. Icar Collective @mz.icar in partnership with  The Culture Rooms @theculturerooms and Arts and Crafts Holdings. This exhibition will approach the notion of joy as a journey. How do we get there as a collective? As individuals? And what does it look like? What does it feel like?

UNRAVELED

The Untitled Space is pleased to present “UNRAVELED: Confronting The Fabric of Fiber Art” a group show opening on April 17th and on view through May 28th, 2021.

STUDIO VISIT: MAS

From an anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.

And like most things in this region of the world black folks got a hold of carnival and took it to the next level, these elaborate multi-day celebrations. They were not invited to the ceremonies of their masters and would put on their own festivals making fun of their masters and so this became a partially satirical event.

UNDERNEATH IT ALL

So much of Blackness is defined in opposition or relation to whiteness, after the labels, the castes, the stereotypes, and social-behavioral expectations are removed, what's underneath? This piece explores one possibility of what's underneath it all.

It is our very first print edition and is included in @versal_amsterdam VERSO subscription box. It is printed in an edition of 50.

SEE ME MURAL

“It is a reminder to walk with eyes open. Through color and composition, this piece explores the positive impact of representation and the lasting inspirational value of being able to see oneself iconically depicted”

Value: In Terms of Iconography

We are so excited to share a collaborative project that we have been working with Erin Patrice O'Brien on. Let's start at the very, very beginning. We met Erin Patricia O'Brian a few years back while working under a different name. We were not new to her images as she is a veteran in the game of photography. One of our members has fond memories of going through vibe magazine...

STUDY UP

This week, we get silly, we get loose and we take a trip back to the archives and chat about process.

THE FUTURE…IF YOU WANT IT

In this week's studio visit we do some time traveling in this video and we play outside.

BLACKOUT

We are going to tell you a true story.

there were these people who lived here, all over, and did things a particular way...as people do. then some other people came from a far place. they came because they couldn't figure out how to be seen where they lived. these poor people, because they were never seen, they didn't know how to see. they used this to justify and enforced dumb rules that continued not to see people and smoosh people. These folks were so blind that after the smooshing,  they traveled far and brought more people that they refused to see, so that they could

STUDIO VISIT: THAT NEW NEW

Let's chat about our experience and manifestations. In this studio visit, we share our process, our thoughts, our themes of exploration as well as our collaborative projects. We are gearing up for a show called 'The Church of expansion'. It will include a series of collages prints canvases banners and other mixed-media works. It also includes the collaboration print series with Erin Patrice O'Brien. We also chat about the origins of our character Matilda and an animation project that has Tanya Farmer teaching her (and you) yoga.

LOVE LESSONS: STUDIO VISIT

There are so many ways to love. Some are so complex and others are so simple. It's always been amazing that you can tell the way a person or creature has been loved often by the way they carry themselves and express love. Unfortunately, when love is lacking sometimes folks interact with that person as if they do not deserve to be loved. When I was a child I use to get so annoyed with my mother priming me. She would carefully do my hair to ensure there were no fly-a-ways. She should make sure I never left looking wrinkled or full of holes or dirty and the most agitating was that right before she would drop me off at...

WIGGED OUT

Let's chat about hair. Particularly the hair that grows out of the top of most folks head. This crown and glory is often a hot topic in the Black community,  often representing politics status, and culture. Basically we don't play when it comes to hair. This hair thing has a long history and has often been a battle and struggle for many women when it comes to acceptability politics, natural vs processed. We love that our hair represents something 'unique' for white audiences but at the same time in the past we have had trouble with the amount of time that this consumes with Black folks, in the form of....

TOLD YOU SO

Welcome to another week our archival studio visits. This week's visit will be centered around the theme 'I told you so'. One of the amazing aspects of having the opportunity to exercise creativity is that it puts the artist closer to the pulse and vibration of what's going on and maybe sometimes even ahead of the game. All of these featured pieces represent that.  All of the work featured in this grouping were a bit forward-leaning for there time, but super relevant now. At the time we were imagining kinda dark futures.

THOTS ON ARCHIVING

We were painstakingly going through all of Junkprint's old work categorizing measuring, storing and pricing all work to make all pieces available for purchase. Because after all if it hasn't been archived did it even exist? And if you are relying on social media networks to create your archives keep in mind, it's rough to build your house on other people's property.

TYPE PLAY

while we are on the topic of type love... We spend a lot of time playing and working on studies. Many of our projects require experimentation as they are quite tactile. We love the digital world...but real life in where it's at, touch something fuzzy, taste something sweet, hug a tree small some plants and gaze upon something shiny in real-life, that kind of thing. These are some recent manifestations of that play. They do not have a purpose, application or home per se but one of our members has been musing about a clothing line. it' all TBD, but in the meantime here's some manifestations of that play.

WE STILL LOVING: TYPE EDITION

We love all of this and it resonates with some of the latest projects we have been working on. We just wrapped up some custom lettering for Machel Montano's Machel Monday. Which happens to be today and also happens to be a celebration of his nuptials. yo! It is seriously a love fest over here. Our work is used in the flyers promotional video as well as the tickets. We loved having the opportunity to work on this. Ya'll over at Hasely stadium, buss a wine for us.

WE LOVE

...that got us thinking about the impact of simply loving up on each other. Like for real love, not ownership, or possessiveness. The type of love that sees oneself in another. That's open to listening and understands how to support and be an advocate. I know, I know it sounds mad mushy, well it is, the point is to feel good. Full belly full heart etc. So we decided that we are gonna share with you things/situations we love.

YOU MAY SHOP NOW

We love solutions, we love the absurdity of old ads (and full disclosure can't wait until our current ads become old these pharmaceutical commercials are out of control). we are very much so American (most apparent when we are out of the country but that's a different post) and so inherently, we are obsessed with the notion of a very quick fix. We also love painting and have a ton of empty cans in the studio. It's bad enough that were spraying all this aerosol into the world might as well make sure that we are upcycling.

NOVEMBER 15TH

What you up to on Friday, November 15th?
Well, you will be hanging with me at the 'Dope Ever Since' event in NYC.

I am super duper excited to announce my newest latest pop-up exhibition. It is taking place at a SECRET Chintatown location on November 15th between 7 p.m. 12a.m. One of the main agendas of Mz.Icar is to create and participate in engaging 'real life' experiences. Thanks to the movers and shakers at Lost Art BK, we have been able to team up with some musicians and creatives to do just that.

SPARK

Luckily, we're not the types to sit, complain, fart and scratch our butts all day. We decided to plan a shoot and basically remind ourselves what we’re working with. How super we are. That we have the answers to trifle with a demanding industry that wants more.

SOCA UNIVERSE

Oftentimes the iconography of our culture is created by an external entity. This project gave me the opportunity to be in the front of center of creating and example or option or celebration and how we see ourselves. I shot the image used at Trinidad's carnival a few years back and when Machel's camp approached me to do this project I was elated to do something that felt so close to home and pull some of the archival footage from that journey.

MS. LAURYN HILL SPECIAL PROJECT

It is a real honor and I am so grateful for the opportunity. Some of the images and things are still in the work so we can't share it all but here's a sneak peek of some of the things that we have been working on including graphics and designs for afrochella and merch for various pop up throughout the tour we were also very honored...

“farewell to meat” CARIBANA 2019

Did you know that the Latin derived name of the holiday 'carnaval' means "farewell to meat."I'll be doing a bit ogf thematic exploration of this in a new live canvas piece this sunday

REMIXED!

it goes without saying that this exhibition is inspiring but I can't help but feel that something is missing...oh yeah, designers of color.Ironically the exhibitions is guarded by docile looking black people dressed up like butlers....The Mz. Icar team and I decided to remix this exhibition because we will pull up a seat at any table we want to.

ARMOUR

Play dead, when your enemy arrives everyone just drop to the floor like the fiercest death drop ever...

DEAR MAMA

We have been sitting on this one for a minute! I am so excited to announce our recent work with Essence magazine. One of our Mz', had the opportunity to paint a three-story mural for the background set celebrating Tonya Louis Lee and Satchel Lee for the may issue. This is currently on the shelves right now it is so fun when you're commercial and you're fine art have a chance to mix and match and make babies together.

MAYDAY, MAYDAY, WHERE ARE THE LADY CODERS?

The project was completely laid out. All the pngs were size then ready for uploading. Sitemap was created. Funds ready to be distributed. All support images and information were ready for the right coder...the right bad ass back slash. bracket genius.It was really important to us to hire a woman coder preferably a woman of color. This ended up being quite a challenge. We reached out to local coding organizations in which we didn't receive any replies. We also sent out feelers through

LISTS

Make a list. Check it twice. Check it for lint and check it for mice. Check it for love. Check it for hate. Make sure it's authenticity isn't up for debate

ART? MONIES? WORTH?

Here comes the business part of being an artist. That part is a true shit show. Between buyers, curators, gallerist, commissions, day jobs, side hustles, patrons and institutions it has the potential to be the most complicated financial structure that exists.

THOTS ON HORSES

Speaking of horses. As a kid I wanted a horse. I wanted to go horse back riding and do competitions like some rich girls I had recently read about. The closest I personally got to acquisition was my little ponies which were fine, because real horse aren’t pink and purple and do not have hearts in there eyes. Well, there was that one time when our next door neighbors from Mexico brought back 2 horse and kept them in their suburban southern California back yard. The whole block smelled like horse poo

CAREBEAR RUG NOTES

The care bear rug. It's interesting the way that we love things. You'll need an avid recreational Hunter who will tell you how they love nature so much as they gaze upon taxidermy head on a wall. It's a strange brand of love...

OBSERVATIONS FROM GLOVER PARK WASHINGTON D.C.

These social settings require careful consideration, as the cloak of blackness creates a marker bringing on stares and overly friendly gestures that seem somewhere between overcompensation for discriminatory thoughts/past actions or nosiness as to why we are occupying white spaces in such a leisure manner.....

READ A BOOK!

I may have to get an actual tangible version of this book. He has so many quotables. I just absolutely love the way that he describes the feeling of his existence and all of these spaces from Yale, to home, to his relationships it's just a beautiful way of writing...

THE LYING PHOTOGRAPH

A photo was never enough. A photo couldn't tell the whole picture. It was as if a photo was just lie that everyone mistook as intrinsically 'the truth' because it looked so real. Perhaps that's why I love a collage and photo montage I love the idea of forcing the viewer to contend with, what you were showing them is not real it's altered. it's all a prospective. it always was a perspective.