Kareem "Petie Parker" Thompson is an Atlanta-based contemporary artist whose work explores memory, Black life, cultural inheritance, and the everyday experiences that shape identity. His paintings draw from neighborhood environments, family, history, nostalgia, music, and familiar moments of Black American life. He often elevates scenes that may seem ordinary into narratives about belonging, resilience, aspiration, and cultural memory. At the center of Petie’s practice is Blackgrounds, his distinctive visual language built through varying tones, textures, and finishes of black. Using shifts between matte, satin, and reflective surfaces, Petie creates images that reveal themselves differently depending on light and the viewer’s position. His restrained palettes, graphic compositions, silhouettes, and layered surfaces allow black to function not simply as color, but as atmosphere, depth, and narrative space. Petie’s work has been exhibited in Atlanta, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, DC and other markets, and has entered private collections throughout the country. His work has also been featured through platforms including Architectural Digest, Burnaway, Black Enterprise, and Hulu. As his practice continues to evolve across painting and large-scale work, Petie uses his distinctly recognizable language to document lived experience while connecting personal memory to larger cultural and historical narratives.