Mother and Witness, 2025

Materials: Oil paint on canvas and wood panel, synthetic hair, papier-mâché, ceramic tiles, cowrie shells, gold gilding

Size: 65 × 60 × 7 in

Short Description:

This work begins in Congo, where the body and the land have carried generations of extraction. A mother holds a child against a landscape shaped by the taking of natural wealth, first through rubber, now through cobalt and other minerals used to power modern electronics, electric cars, and global technologies. The child is not only a child of flesh, but a witness: one who carries the memory of what has been done and what must be understood. The mother’s body becomes both shelter and testimony. She holds what the world tries to take, and in that act of holding, she refuses erasure.