Collect Call

Collect Call

Poindexter, Amani Zaire

My relationship with my father has routinely been defined by absence. He was in and out of prison throughout my childhood and remained largely abstracted even when he was free. As a result, he missed my consequential milestones, including the beginning of my artistic journey. His abandonment has deeply shaped the ways that I remember my childhood, how I communicate with others, and how I understand myself. I still feel the weight of our connection in unexpected ways, including the lingering aversion to our shared last name. Creating art became a way for me to process emotions I didn’t yet have language for. As a child, color, line, and shape offered a release for feelings I was being forced to bear too early. Collect Call is a 48”x 36” oil painting deepicting a portrait of my father as a young man, based on a photograph that was taken shortly before I was born. The title references the collect calls from jail that stained my childhood, calls that required someone on the outside to pay. For me, that cost was emotional. Even in his absence, I carried the consequences of his actions, learning early what it meant to undertake grief, confusion, and longing without resolution. Placed in the top right of the painting is a childhood drawing I made in 2007-2008, titled This is My Momy and My Dady. I used cold wax to recreate the crayon texture, carefully matching colors to preserve the original sentiment.

2026