Abstraction to Ancestry

Abstraction to Ancestry merges portraiture with the intimate language of biology. Each piece starts with a portrait I made in Sierra Leone, a region my DNA connects me to, even though I never knew this growing up . Like many people of Caribbean descent, my sense of identity was shaped in Britain and Barbados in the 1990s. My grandparents were Bajans trying to make their way in the UK, and Africa was never part of the conversation. In my thirties, a DNA test traced my lineage directly back to Sierra Leone, revealing a history my family never spoke or knew about about. This project sits in the space between those identities: the life I lived and the ancestry my body carries.

Using a halftone process, I replaced the dots of the image with my own blood cells, printing entire portraits from the smallest units of my body. Up close, each piece dissolves into scattered cellular shapes; step back, and a face emerges. The works shift between microscopic abstraction and recognisable human presence, mirroring how identity itself changes depending on how closely or distantly it’s viewed.

By reconstructing the faces of people I met in Sierra Leone through my own cells, the project explores connection, disconnection, and the fragmented nature of heritage. It doesn’t claim lineage or offer simple conclusions. Instead, it reflects on how the body holds histories that the mind may never have lived, and how ancestry can be both intimate and far away at the same time.