06/16/2026
Day 2 with Jermaine "jET" Carter \ What inspires you?
Many of my influences were present long before I understood them. They were simply part of the visual language of my childhood.
My grandmother filled our home with reproductions by artists like Jacob Lawrence and Annie Lee. A lot of black figurative works of people moving from one point to another and facing their reality with strong emotion conveyed with simple facial features. Growing up in Washington, D.C., I was also surrounded by public art. Going on museum visits downtown more times than I can count. We were exposed to so many monuments, museums, and architecture. Art was really woven into the city itself.
I’m equally inspired by African relief sculpture, masks, and visual traditions that turn history, storytelling, and identity into physical objects. These influences continue to shape how I think about memory, preservation, and cultural artifacts.
Outside the art world, I was obsessed with comics, animation, and early-2000s superhero television. What fascinated me most was the worldbuilding, the idea that entire universes could be built through symbols, myths, and visual language.These would be things my sketchbooks would be filled up with growing up.
Looking back, my practice sits between these influences: part archive, part monument, part mythology.
Continued in the comments, read more about how these artworks have inspired my practice.
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ID 1: Image of an artwork depicting a young boy walking in the city with a brick wall in the background decorated with images of historical figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman.
ID 2: Detail of “Blue Monday” (1985) by Annie Lee
ID 3: Illustration of fictional character, Cyborg, with a reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” in the background.
