About Fools of Light
Before I could read, my brother taught me to draw. Art was our first language — he'd draw something, and I'd draw something back. No words passed between us. None were needed. Long before I had a language of my own, I had that one.
Years later, it became something larger than either of us imagined.
After George Floyd was killed, I made a piece that asked one simple, unbearable question: would you shoot if I looked like this? Beneath it, a truth I needed to say out loud we are all full of light.
A dear friend saw that piece and gave it its name: Fools of Light.
The name stayed with me for a reason I didn't expect. At fourteen, still learning English, I didn't yet have the words for what I felt — so when anger came, "fool" was the word that came with it. Clumsy. Imperfect. But mine. Hearing it again, years later, now carrying light instead of anger, felt like watching a circle close.
I create under the name SEBU a word from Tigrinya, my family's language, meaning simply Its human. It carries my Eritrean heritage into everything I make, and it grounds this brand in one idea: that being human, fully and honestly, is the whole point.
This is what Fools of Light stands for art as a language before words, imperfection that still speaks clearly, and the belief that everyone carries light, even when the world makes that hard to see.
Every piece begins the way my brother first showed me: by hand, by feeling, before ever needing explanation.
Thank you for being part of that story.