It’s More Than a Dream, It’s a Lifestyle.
Lenard Sayazake or Sayazake, as he’s commonly known, was born William Walker Jr on December 28th, 1991 in Jamaica Queens New York. Graduating from Hillcrest High School in 2009, Sayazake then studied theatre at Queensborough community college for only a semester. After dropping out of college in 2010, he wrote short stories to help him through his depression and eventually went on to work at Midtown comics a year later. After being surrounded by comic books and toys from all sorts of publications, Sayazake became inspired to become a visual artist.
Throughout his life, Sayazake has experimented with a wide array of art forms.From playing music in his middle school band class, to acting in school plays for most of his high school career, to finally becoming a self taught visual artist.Honing in on illustration, photography & painting, his work mainly focuses on different aspects of himself, unseen worlds and breaking the rules. Sayazake’s interest in different worlds and rule breaking stems from his rebellious nature and curiosity of the occult and what secrets it may hold for him. Sayazake often uses “trippy”, unrealistic visuals to propose new ideas and challenge his audience’s beliefs. Sayazake having no prior professional training in the world of visual art, seeks to create his own universe and rules to create a larger conversation of what the mind & spirit is actually capable of when given the chance to express itself on a medium it feels comfortable with.
With much practice and a growing number of art pieces growing in his collection, Sayazake showed his work at The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture show ,”Paint in Love” in 2017. Since then, he has been expanding his network and experimenting with different types of media.
