This book is inspired by the poem 'Love Is' by Nikki Giovanni. The poem is an interrogation on the definition of love through the eyes of the speaker. The poem describes a love that resides in the everyday; the small, seemingly unimportant nuances and banal intricacies discovered sharing life with someone.

Drawing inspiration from art history, and infusing popular culture into various multimedia collage portraits of African-American women and men, NEUTOKYO is about challenging preconceived notions of black identity, beauty, power, and intelligence.

As an artzine LOVE IS carries the message to mean loving my blackness. That black visage that stares at me in the mirror and that take with me out on the street everydav. The black faces of my family and strangers alike within the worldwide African diaspora.

My explicit use of the black body serves to critique the the idea of 'blackness' as a subject, an aesthetic, and something that defies time and space.

It is important to consistently put forth that that WE black people understand what love is.

Love is you and me.