Afro Aquatica

Lino-carved block print on A3 Afro Aquatico pays homage to the meeting of my African and Mediterranean heritage across oceans, shaped through an Australian-born identity of intersecting migrant and diasporic histories. The work continues my exploration of primordial faces - intuitive forms connecting ancestry, memory and transformation. Recent travel to the ancestral lands of my Khoisan lineage in South Africa, experiences in Papua New Guinea, and my encounter with Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti have informed my relationship with carving and printmaking. Ocean forms emerge from an inky black, point-zero space, evoking the primordial while reflecting the infinite cosmos - a shared sky across lands, oceans and generations. The ocean speaks to migration and connection across my own diasporic histories, while the infinite connects these experiences beyond geographic boundaries. Through the physical acts of carving and printing, the work embodies what has left its mark upon me, what I shape in the present, and what I may imprint into the future. Afro Aquatico embodies Present Ascendance - a movement through inheritance, presence and creation, towards what may continue beyond me.