Born in West Africa, Simon Sparrow’s family moved to the United States and settled on the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina.  At the age of sixteen, he lied about his age in order to enter the U.S. Army.  Upon his return home, Sparrow settled in New York and began preaching on the street.  He considered his art and evangelism to be one in the same.  His mixed media works are a conglomeration of icons found in Christianity and African spirituality.  Sparrow believed that his images were not representations of actual people, but spirits that embodied the mystery surrounding humans.  This notion stems from the West African Yoruba tradition in which their gods have two eyes – inner spiritual eyes that can see the divine and outer eyes that are used to view the physical world.