Rooted In Me

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.

Niro said this with so much warmth, and painting her felt like painting that pride back onto something that could carry it forward. This piece is painted directly onto the real, repurposed rice-sack fabric she works with every day.

This piece carries Niro's own words, written in Tamil: எனது கலாச்சாரத்தை நான் நேசிக்கிறேன் "I love my culture."

• Size: 50 x 70cm, unstretched
• One-of-one original, hand-painted on repurposed rice sack material
• Ships rolled, ready to mount or frame