Celebrating Austin's Black Artists

DeLoné Osby

I am a self-taught artist and have been painting since 2009. I only recently started to try to share my message and my work with others because I started painting to heal from trauma. Each piece of work has a special meaning behind it: something I have realized for myself, or a social commentary on what I see around me. But it’s taken me a long time to get to where I am today…

I should have been a statistic.

I grew up not really understanding who I was. I am bi-racial, I am pan sexual, I had to deal with early childhood trauma, and I ended up in emotionally and physically abusive relationships. But I fought back. I refused to be another statistic in a book. I worked hard through trauma therapy, talk therapy, and spiritual healing. Then as an adult, I suffered a miscarriage that turned everything around in my healing journey. I was broken. I stopped eating. My marriage fell apart. I was not happy.

A friend suggested painting.

She bought me a canvas, some brushes, and some paint. She told me about Frida Kahlo, and how she used her pain to fuel her work; she turned it into something beautiful. I found my strength and peace in art, and never looked back.

Art is a way to process the world around me and what I am feeling. When you look at one of my pieces, you are looking at my heart. I am just a Goddess, standing in front of the universe, asking it to help me heal generational curses. I hope my work moves you to search for your own healing.