Translation: ‘’And it turns out we are not related ‘’

I have three siblings in Côte d’Ivoire that I hadn’t met until the summer of 2025 because we could never afford a ticket. Both my parents speak French, but we were never taught for various reasons. The accumulation of these barriers forms a distance that I explore in a continuous series of works originally titled 5,255 miles and now evolved to FROM AFAR. The series visually talks about Côte d'Ivoire as I have now experienced it. I play with Africa as an imaginary faraway land. It ponders the oddity of genetic and spiritual closeness against physical, monetary, and linguistic distance.

About this piece:

I painted the smaller rhombus shapes portrait with a paintbrush on a stick about 8 feet away, forcing me to paint at a literal distance. I painted closer and closer with the larger portraits

I found this woman in the background of footage my father took on his first trip to his village. I loved her hairstyle, she looked like she could be a relative, and I was drawn to create this collage of paintings of her. I do not know her, and it turns out we are not related.