"Be You" - 2025
30" x 40"
Tissue paper and acrylic on foam board
 
"Be You" is a layered portrait inspired by Erykah Badu and the wisdom woven through her words. Built completely from tissue paper this work reflects how Identity is formed piece by piece shaped by adversity, influence, and wisdom. Each layer represents a experience, a moment, a becoming. "Be You" invites us to return to ourselves and honor the complex beauty of who we already are.
 
Born with a rare autoimmune disease and later losing my eyesight, I move through the world with a new choreography, to a rhythm that’s quite different. What could’ve been an ending became a transformation, teaching me to create through instinct, emotion, and energy rather than sight. My art lives in that movement, where adaptation becomes expression and limitation transforms into an inspirational language.

I’m Reggie McFly, a Chicago-based mixed media artist whose work moves in an imperfectly perfect rhythm, a dance between creativity and evolution. Blending paint, clay, yarn, fabric, and tactile materials, encouraging each element to move like a dancer across the surface while I guide the choreography. Texture becomes perspective and language, carrying memory, emotion, and the layered stories we hold.

Each piece unfolds like an improvised performance, deeply textured, vibrant, and built through trial, error, and trust. My art is meant to be felt as much as it’s seen. Through it, I invite others to join the dance, to embrace imperfection, move to their own rhythm, and find meaning in the ever-changing performance of life.