From Saint Anne’s in Nottingham black-dominated area of Nottingham known as the ‘ghetto’ and ‘Shottingham’ Honey was from a Jamaican family mum and dad both Jamaicans and her dad lived in Manchester in Moss Side notorious ghetto in the 80s and 90s.
Honey started getting into the music industry around university working with Ronnie size drum and bass artist who made his name in the 90s as well as Kalashnikov who’s a rapper and producer MJ Cole. Honey’s experience of the industry was it had misogyny, especially towards black females.
After University getting a degree in graphic media design and illustration for 8 years Honey didn’t draw but did set up a blog called the picky heads. it was all about ‘bigging up’ black women, hair and their skin as Honey addresses this big problem with skin tone as well as the hair texture is called colourism which most people may not be familiar with.
Eight years after University Honey started creating ‘my diary’ because Honey thought ‘I thought I better start using this again for myself because I’m gonna forget how to do it you know I’m not gonna have that same connexion to it anymore and so I started’.
Through her creative practise honey’s been asked to do many workshops with the aim of centring black women whilst making white privilege more visible to white people.
One of honey’s first commissions was by the organisation called digging deep by Norma Gregory and it was about honouring black coal miners in Britain this was in 2018 and this piece is called no joke normal. It was a workshop where people that were differently abled came together and they did the background of the piece with all that history is all behind him. Honey had about 10 minutes to put something on top so she creates the minor at about A0.
After George Floyd was murdered and the black lives matter movement blew up honey found it ‘dark’ how the amount of work came her way after that she was asked to do multiple commissions and projects as well as talks. All of a sudden people were interested in what Honey had to say. Honey felt like ‘where were you like in 2004’ ‘see it now it’s on-trend now’
Honey gained a City Arts residency which honey hadn’t heard of but they have been around all my life which gives you an idea how white they must have been because ‘no one black knew about this’. long-established now only a certain type of people knew about it and before Honey was given the residency they did a think tank with some black artists against racism and City Arts allowed them to push for a couple of hours. Saying ‘I’ve never heard of you like what have you been doing?’ Honey felt they were real with them. They change management and took it all on board. they gave Honey an art residency and this is the first time Honey feels she’s ‘produced any work for me’
One of my personal favourite works of Honey’s is ‘snakey friends’. It says end structural racism in Britain is pretty self-explanatory much like the left lying front covers it’s really layered and intricate and there’s lots of history interwoven throughout all of this.
I enjoy honey’s work and the way that she enriches the work with such historical value and power. the way that honey has been able to create positive change within the art world through her art and what it signifies I think it’s really powerful and has made me question how my own work can impact social change as well as change within the art world.