a journey of reconnection and rediscovery, exploring identity, hybridity, and the spaces we inhabit. Through painterly expressions grounded in a mixed-race identity, maya navigates the tension between self and otherness, embracing the complexity of being and un-being
- Sara Ahmed, ‘A Phenomenology of Whiteness’, 2007
finding what once was documents the process of reconnection, to a part of me that has been squashed. following a summer of questioning, my fear of failure forced me to consider the spaces in which i have been happiest, and encouraged me to find the energy that once was and reconnect with it.
the foundation to my painterly practice has been the exploration of my mixed race identity through the control of colour - by playing with combinations of paint and shifting tones to alter how colours harmonise. the pieces included in finding what once was have grown from this foundation and explore similar questions of self, through an alternative lens of rediscovery and reconnection.
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nearly 5 years into my career i am no clearer on what i want to do. a long standing fear is that the answer to this question never arises and i am left unclear on what i am, a feeling of otherness all too familiar to me. the reality is that in this digital world, the requirement to be singularly focused is lessening, and the ability to be a multi-hyphenate is becoming (slightly more) accessible. but, i am already a hybrid: i am brown and i am white; i am indian and i am english and irish; i am constantly in a process of being and un-being (cornelia parker). can i cope with this hybridity in my professional life too?
the opportunity to reconnect with a previously artistically productive version of myself, in the making these works, felt jarring at first and i felt embarrassed by my unpracticed thoughts. it revealed the urgency for me to reconsider how i am working.
i often think of the spaces i spend my time in, and consider how they are formed around the spaces of the bodies that live and exist within them. here i return to a favourite sara ahmed quote: “spaces acquire the shape of the bodies that ‘inhabit’ them”. in a world that feels scarier and heavier, more polarised and politicised, the urgency for one to consider the shape of their body in space, and the shapes of other people’s bodies, feels more prescient.
the hybridity of being myself whilst feeling completely outside of my body may be a sentiment that arises at different times in my life. though through this work i have rediscovered my point of view and reoriented myself so as to exist in a space that sees my artistic contributions as valuable and whole. my unfamiliarity of wholeness makes this reorientation feel integral and unnerving. whether that space that signifies wholeness is physically shared with someone else doesn’t feel relevant, for now, i’ll take accepting the shape of my own body within the space of my own mind as enough.