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"I've taken classes throughout, but I never intentionally went to school to be a painter," Mike Weary tells NOLA.com.
But the 36-year-old resident of Baton Rouge, La., has been self-taught since he was 6 years old, and now he's an artist-in-residence at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, or what he calls "what I refer to as home."
Weary says he started drawing in his mother's Home Depot breakroom at age 6, when there was no one to watch him.
He filled up the time by capturing people's likenesses, and since then, "I realized everyone around here knows how to do something."
Weary says he's coined his style of work as Dorian Gothic, inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Many of his paintings feature real people, but through a distorted lens.
"When people see it, sometimes they see the bug itself, which is a June Bug," Weary says.
"But a lot of Black people have someone named June Bug in their family."
Weary says the ambiguity of the painting allows for members of the community to connect in specific ways.
He's leading an arts initiative called Arts for Everybody Read the Entire Article
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JustFund: Pioneering Equitable Philanthropy with Simplified Grantmaking
JustFund, a grantmaking platform built by funders and organizers of color, aims to revolutionize philanthropy by making it more equitable and efficient.
