Prayer (Orisha)

This piece was the penultimate in my 2021 collection exploring collage/mixed media and exploring scenes from my own personal photographs. It is a personal piece about family and the powers of manifestation via prayer. It also refers to the "Orisha," of the Yoruba tradition, namely "Obatala" and "Yemaya." The woman swimming in the lower half of the piece is my mother, or Yemaya, and the image on the top is Obatala. The little girls in the center of the image are the flower girls at my wedding. When I conceived of this piece I was thinking about Obatala protecting the children. The outer images are my mother as a young woman and my wife happily swimming and posing for the camera. Later, I found out from a priestess that Obatala and Yemaya are married. So in hindsight, I feel that this image is of a wedding, and it is heartwarming for me because my mother did not survive to be able to attend my wedding in person, but she is here in this piece.

This piece is not available for sale. But if you would like to learn about others like it, check out my blog "Commissions." For inquiries, click here: