Resilience
48” x 36”
Acrylic, Art Prints, Magazine Photos, Metallic Marker, Pumice, Litter, Glitter,
Metallic Paint on Stretched Canvas
2021
Resilience is a mixed‑media meditation on survival, memory, and the intertwined genocides of Africans and Native Americans in the United States. Created with acrylic paint, art prints, magazine photos, metallic marker, pumice, litter, glitter, and metallic paint on stretched canvas, the piece depicts the West African orisha Oshun as a mermaid, deep in the waters of Olokun’s Atlantic. This is the oceanic realm that holds the memories of those lost to the Middle Passage. Here, Oshun kneels in prayer, embodying both grief and endurance, calling forth resilience from the depths of ancestral trauma.
The work draws inspiration from the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, a sacred site uncovered in the 1990s where more than 400 enslaved and free Africans were interred during the 17th and 18th centuries. Their graves, buried beneath centuries of development, reveal the scale of New York’s participation in slavery and the deliberate erasure of Black life from the city’s historical narrative. This burial ground becomes a spiritual anchor for the piece, connecting Oshun’s underwater prayer to the countless souls whose stories were submerged beneath the foundations of the nation.
Surrounding Oshun is a cove of Native American pictographs, referencing the Indigenous peoples of Manhattan, including the Lenape, whose land was stolen through violence, manipulation, and forced displacement. Even the widening of the path that became Broadway is tied to the removal of Native communities and the expansion of colonial power. By placing these pictographs within the same sacred space as Oshun, the piece acknowledges the parallel and overlapping histories of genocide, land theft, and cultural erasure that shaped the continent.
Oshun’s golden tail, her signature color, is adorned with Adinkra symbols, many of which share striking similarities in shape and meaning with Native American pictographs. These shared symbols, found across continents, speak to a deeper, often undocumented history of human connection, migration, and spiritual resonance. Their presence in the tail becomes a testament to the ways cultures echo one another across oceans and eras, suggesting that resilience is not only inherited but shared.
Her textured hair, crowned with Oshun’s favorite sunflowers, radiates warmth and beauty even in the depths of Olokun’s ocean. The contrast between her luminous presence and the heavy histories surrounding her underscores the central theme of the piece: that resilience is not the absence of suffering, but the ability to transform it into strength, memory, and meaning.
48” x 36”
Acrylic, Art Prints, Magazine Photos, Metallic Marker, Pumice, Litter, Glitter,
Metallic Paint on Stretched Canvas
2021
Resilience is a mixed‑media meditation on survival, memory, and the intertwined genocides of Africans and Native Americans in the United States. Created with acrylic paint, art prints, magazine photos, metallic marker, pumice, litter, glitter, and metallic paint on stretched canvas, the piece depicts the West African orisha Oshun as a mermaid, deep in the waters of Olokun’s Atlantic. This is the oceanic realm that holds the memories of those lost to the Middle Passage. Here, Oshun kneels in prayer, embodying both grief and endurance, calling forth resilience from the depths of ancestral trauma.
The work draws inspiration from the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, a sacred site uncovered in the 1990s where more than 400 enslaved and free Africans were interred during the 17th and 18th centuries. Their graves, buried beneath centuries of development, reveal the scale of New York’s participation in slavery and the deliberate erasure of Black life from the city’s historical narrative. This burial ground becomes a spiritual anchor for the piece, connecting Oshun’s underwater prayer to the countless souls whose stories were submerged beneath the foundations of the nation.
Surrounding Oshun is a cove of Native American pictographs, referencing the Indigenous peoples of Manhattan, including the Lenape, whose land was stolen through violence, manipulation, and forced displacement. Even the widening of the path that became Broadway is tied to the removal of Native communities and the expansion of colonial power. By placing these pictographs within the same sacred space as Oshun, the piece acknowledges the parallel and overlapping histories of genocide, land theft, and cultural erasure that shaped the continent.
Oshun’s golden tail, her signature color, is adorned with Adinkra symbols, many of which share striking similarities in shape and meaning with Native American pictographs. These shared symbols, found across continents, speak to a deeper, often undocumented history of human connection, migration, and spiritual resonance. Their presence in the tail becomes a testament to the ways cultures echo one another across oceans and eras, suggesting that resilience is not only inherited but shared.
Her textured hair, crowned with Oshun’s favorite sunflowers, radiates warmth and beauty even in the depths of Olokun’s ocean. The contrast between her luminous presence and the heavy histories surrounding her underscores the central theme of the piece: that resilience is not the absence of suffering, but the ability to transform it into strength, memory, and meaning.