Artist Statement —

My body of work investigates the developmental consequences of the absent father and the cultural systems that leave males under-instructed at critical stages of formation. Rather than framing absence as a singular failure, his practice examines it as a generational vacancy—one that quietly redirects boys toward premature self-initiation.

In the absence of elders, language, and witnessing, many males enter what JuVee describes as the dark corner: a psychological and emotional threshold where responsibility accumulates faster than relief and emotion is carried without articulation. This space is not portrayed as pathology, but as a developmental arrest—one that society often mislabels while failing to provide meaningful routes of recovery.

JuVee positions art as an initiatory practice—a structured encounter designed to restore language, reflection, and relational accountability. Working primarily with paper-based materials, his work emphasizes writing, mark-making, and inscription as acts of reclamation. Paper functions both symbolically and practically: as a site of memory, instruction, and return.

Central to the practice is the creation of a paper trail—a visual and narrative record that traces how males lose orientation and how they might find their way back through emotional literacy, ritual, and communal witnessing. These works do not seek to aestheticize trauma; they seek to discipline attention, invite participation, and support emotional recovery as a cultural necessity rather than a private undertaking.

JuVee’s work exists at the intersection of art, assembly, and social practice. It calls fathers and sons back into conversation, reframes dark corners as developmental spaces, and proposes art not as commentary alone, but as infrastructure for repair, responsibility, and peace.