D.C. born, Hyattsville raised twins Eleisha Faith McCorkle & Tonisha Hope McCorkle are currently seniors attending New York University majoring in Studio Art, with minors in Social & Cultural Analysis and Psychology, respectively. Individually, one is skilled in drawing, printmaking, and digital art while the other is a painter and ceramicist. They combined artistic qualities in their junior year show, “OUR SKIN, OUR LOGO.” Since then, they have decided to come together for their senior body of work at NYU.

Formerly enrolled in the Visual and Performing Arts program at the Jim Henson School of Arts, Media, and Communication in Hyattsville, Maryland, the pair have been curating, studying, and creating art since they were 13. At the age of 17, the twins lost their mother to the rare lung condition of Sarcoidosis. From then on, the two have used their art as a space of healing, creating immersive experiences that engage with loss, grief, and identity.

Depicting black culture and rituals, the collective tells stories through veracious imagery and specific symbols, detailing their notions of the black experience and truth. Collard greens, locs, gumbo, superstitions, braids, and faith are some relics represented in their work. Sourced from their own lives, the artists secure their place in the present by commemorating the past, immortalizing their subjects and experience. Their work speaks to the candid, yet uncanny truth of black life, while simultaneously severing from a cyclical narrative deeply rooted in pain and disenfranchisement. Tackling large scales and travelling various dimensions, the pair chronicles events and traditions, reinforcing the relationship between blackness and rituals of hair, spirituality, food, and healing.