24” x 20”
Acrylic, Fabric, Ground Coffee, Beads, Glitter on Stretched Canvas
2026
Yemaya & Oshun: The Shoreline Between Worlds depicts the two Yoruba orishas standing together at the edge of land and sea. This represents a spiritual threshold where memory, ancestry, and protection converge. Created with acrylic, fabric, ground coffee, beads, and glitter on stretched canvas, the piece shows Yemaya and Oshun emerging from shoreline foliage as two slave ships drift faintly across the horizon. Their presence at the water’s edge reflects the belief that the orishas watched over enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, offering guidance and spiritual refuge when the physical world offered none. The shoreline becomes a symbolic meeting place between realms, where the past and present, the living and the ancestral, trauma and transcendence coexist.
The lilac beaded frame references periwinkle flowers, historically used by enslaved people to mark unmarked graves in the United States, a tradition shared with the artist by fellow artist Hubert Jackson. This border transforms the artwork into a memorial space, honoring those whose names were lost but whose spirits remain. Textural elements like ground coffee and layered fabric echo the layered histories embedded in the landscape, while the distant ships acknowledge the trauma without centering it. Instead, the focus remains on Yemaya and Oshun as powerful witnesses and protectors, standing in quiet vigilance. Yemaya & Oshun: The Shoreline Between Worlds becomes a meditation on survival, remembrance, and the unseen forces that accompany the African diaspora across its hardest crossings.
24” x 20”
Acrylic, Fabric, Ground Coffee, Beads, Glitter on Stretched Canvas
2026
Yemaya & Oshun: The Shoreline Between Worlds depicts the two Yoruba orishas standing together at the edge of land and sea. This represents a spiritual threshold where memory, ancestry, and protection converge. Created with acrylic, fabric, ground coffee, beads, and glitter on stretched canvas, the piece shows Yemaya and Oshun emerging from shoreline foliage as two slave ships drift faintly across the horizon. Their presence at the water’s edge reflects the belief that the orishas watched over enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, offering guidance and spiritual refuge when the physical world offered none. The shoreline becomes a symbolic meeting place between realms, where the past and present, the living and the ancestral, trauma and transcendence coexist.
The lilac beaded frame references periwinkle flowers, historically used by enslaved people to mark unmarked graves in the United States, a tradition shared with the artist by fellow artist Hubert Jackson. This border transforms the artwork into a memorial space, honoring those whose names were lost but whose spirits remain. Textural elements like ground coffee and layered fabric echo the layered histories embedded in the landscape, while the distant ships acknowledge the trauma without centering it. Instead, the focus remains on Yemaya and Oshun as powerful witnesses and protectors, standing in quiet vigilance. Yemaya & Oshun: The Shoreline Between Worlds becomes a meditation on survival, remembrance, and the unseen forces that accompany the African diaspora across its hardest crossings.
