Today we’d like to introduce you to Victorious McLeod.
Hi Victorious, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve always been a creative person. In my youth, I spent most of the free and unfree time I had available drawing in crayons on small sheets of printer paper. After I graduated, I spent time working as an independent visual artist while moonlighting at coffee shops to supplement my income, until one day, I moved to New York in pursuit of career as an Oil Painter. In my efforts, I secured an apprenticeship with two amazing figurative artists; one of which was a native of Georgia, the other a native of North Carolina. I then returned to the South to finish my degree and produce my first film.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I have struggled over the past decade to develop my work to this point. It’s hard to develop your work, maintain healthy relationships, and stay true to who you are simultaneously. There are so many factors in balancing those elements that it can be easy to get lost in value of your work.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I paint Oil Paintings of myself. Self Portraiture is a tradition that stretches back to anthropology and deals with the depiction of the internal landscape. I paint these paintings in the realist tradition, representationally. I am most proud of this concept because it feels like the natural next step in modern aesthetics. The world is becoming less modernist and more individualist. I believe I am taking the first steps to record the inner landscape of creative African-American men, who dominate so much of the economy but have been the subject to cultural trauma.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Anyone who has passed on to me knowledge of how to excel at my diverse range of talents deserves more credit for my own successes than even myself.
Contact Info:
- Email: victoriousmcleod@protonmail.com
- Website: www.victoriousmcleod.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/victorious.mcleod
