Portrait(s) Divine Mother 2024
"Portrait(s), Divine Mother," featuring 16 photographic self-portraits pays homage to my matriarchal lineage, Caribbean Shaktism, and the profound familial narrative intertwining them. Scheduled for a solo exhibition at BlackRock Center for the Arts this project explores the scarce stories from my mother's childhood, including healing a limp arm through a gold arm offering at a temple in Guyana. Through this endeavor, I aim to honor the spiritual heritage of my family while unraveling the personal significance of our family history. Our ancestral worship derives from Shaktism, a spiritual tradition venerating the divine feminine through goddesses like Mariamman and Kali. Raised in a female-dominated household, I am driven to dig into this practice, celebrating the Divine Mother and its profound influence within our familial and spiritual realms.
"Portrait(s), Divine Mother" utilizes a process of capturing, printing, and scanning self-portraits to engage in a dialogue centered on preservation and storytelling. I pay homage to the vibrant goddesses revered in Shaktism by emphasizing yellow hues, replacing my studio's printer’s black ink with yellow. Finally, I print the scanned images on metal and fabric, further imbuing the artwork with a profound sense of ancestral resonance while transforming the photograph into a three-dimensional object with weight and substance. I aim to evoke a profound connection to my cultural roots and ancestral lineage, celebrating the enduring legacy of Caribbean Shaktism and the divine feminine within my identity.