mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG
Ink, watercolour and collage on paper, 2023
Representing an engagement with the -othertongue of English spanning the course of the artist’s career, these texts offer fragments of insight into a vexed relationship with language, refracted through the long arc of colonial burden and postcolonial anxieties.
The synthesis of text and image in this artwork merges collisions between words and sentences, sound and vision. Using red and black ink on paper, the artist creates a sensory experience, as words and images stain and bleed, distorting their supports. The declarative, first-person mode of address allows for freedom of expression without being confined to identity webs. The linguistic corruptions, indicating alienation from anglophone norms, showcase the artists 'lingual anarchy,' offering fresh perspectives. As language is compromised, the artist explores the threat of the Other, aiming to conjure othered identities within genders, ethnicities, and cultures, navigating a space beyond governance and reasoning.
