J’can teen lands feature in Ft Lauderdale Black History Month exhibition
Published:Saturday | February 6, 2021 | 1:17 AMNadine Wilson-Harris/Staff Reporter
Mikayle Morrison took to drawing to ease the depression that set in after she migrated to Florida at just 10 years old, so even she is surprised that two of her pieces have already made their way into a major art gallery in Fort Lauderdale.
Morrison, now 15, is a student at the Dillard School of the Arts and hopes to one day join the staff at Cartoon Network.
She initially started drawing because she missed her mother, who did not get to migrate to the United States until two years later.
“A way for me to cope and to just feel at peace was to draw. At first, it was just a little thing I would do and it just became something like a little hobby, and then it became something I want to do for my future career,” said Morrison, who lived in Old Harbour, St Catherine, prior to migrating to live with her father and other relatives.
“When I do art, it makes me feel at home, like I am no longer in reality. I am just in my imaginative world away from all the stress and from thinking about too much that is going on around me,” she told The Gleaner.
Morrison’s “sad” paintings used to bother her mother, Gay-Ann Braham, a lot.
“When she started drawing, the drawings were very depressing. It was like lonely drawings, like someone is alone, but then the drawings looked good. I didn’t like that she was drawing so many depressing drawings,” Braham admitted.
She encouraged her daughter to draw pieces depicting happiness, and gradually, the themes started to change.
In middle school, the teenager impressed her teachers, who recommended that she attend Dillard. Following an interview and after showing her portfolio pieces, she was admitted.
Morrison was recently selected to showcase her art for a Black History Month-themed exhibition at the New River Inn building of History Fort Lauderdale.
One of her art pieces, ‘Above Gravity’, is being used to promote the event, which will feature artists from Fort Lauderdale.
“It is supposed to describe the beauty of afro hair, because there is this ideology that Afro hair is nappy and it is unkempt and is not the standard of beauty; but to me, it really is a beautiful hairstyle, and it is so where it defies gravity and it is unique,” Morrison explained.
Her mother, who has encouraged her talent over the years, is excited about Morrison’s achievements, telling The Gleaner that the attention has definitely built her daughter’s confidence.