Lead With My Hands

This collection started with a decision I almost didn't make. I flew to Sri Lanka alone because I felt lost, in my art and in myself, and I ended up in a warehouse a long way from anywhere, learning to sew from a group of women who barely spoke my language. I rode back every day for a week. We shared meals, laughs, and eventually, the words they live by.

Each piece is a portrait of one of those women, painted directly onto the real rice-sack fabric she works with every day, carrying her own words stitched into the story. To me, this isn't just a collection about them,  it's about how our own lives are a puzzle of decisions, sewn together one by one, until they become who we are. This is my thank you to them, and my promise to myself to keep choosing what excites me over what scares me.

Dinusa said this without hesitation, like it wasn't even a question. There was so much pride in it, and I wanted to hold onto that. This piece is painted directly onto the real, repurposed rice-sack fabric she works with every day.

This piece carries Dinusa's own words, written in Tamil: எனது வேலையை நான் நேசிக்கிறேன் "I love my work."

• Size: 70 x 100cm, unstretched
• One-of-one original, hand-painted on repurposed rice sack material
• Ships rolled, ready to mount or frame