MOTHER TREE

The word 'Mother' to me embodies the idea of 'sacrifice' -- as my own mother certainly embodied for me.

I associate the roots of a tree with the idea of Mother: the source of all nurturing.  My mother was the source of my strength, and I still desire to be grounded by her presence.

My mother never had a room of her own.  It was sacrificed for us, her children; and that room, with her presence at the centre, was my place of warmth and brilliance, my childhood paradise.

For me, the act of drawing each strand of hair, one line at a time, becomes a personal, regenerative process of delineating the yearning for that lost paradise.  Each strand of hair I draw resembles the annual growth rings of a tree.  Those rings are the traces and scars of the passage of time... just like the wrinkles around my mother's eyes.

The recognition that came to me fully only after becoming a mother myself -- of the sacrifice given and inherent worth possessed by every mother -- this is the story I wish to tell with my art.