A journey from blood, to code, to connection.

Cells began as an exploration of abstraction – a continuation of my long-standing practice of breaking down and reconstructing forms to uncover new meaning. From numbers and letters to faces, each chapter has investigated the symbolic systems through which we understand the world – and ourselves.

This latest work moves deeper, turning to the very matter of the body: blood cells. In collaboration with a research centre in the Netherlands, I extracted my own blood and used generative code to transform those microscopic structures into visual compositions. These are not scientific illustrations, but artistic reconstructions built from observing the essence of self.

But Cells has also taken an unexpected and profoundly personal turn.

Earlier this year, we travelled to Sierra Leone – far from the capital, deep into the rural heartland where there was no electricity or running water. While it may seem distant from the lives many of us know, for me it became something else entirely: a mirror.

A recent DNA test revealed that nearly 50% of my ancestry traces back to Sierra Leone and West Africa. While I’ve long identified more strongly with my Barbadian roots, standing in Sierra Leone – seeing faces, gestures, and personalities that felt oddly familiar – something shifted. It wasn’t just cultural or visual. It was biological across every cell in my. body.

In this phase of Cells, I’ve used my own blood cells to reconstruct not just abstract forms, but the faces of those I encountered – people from communities where my ancestral bloodline originates. These aren’t portraits in the traditional sense. They’re symbolic reconnections – expressions of an identity that’s both known and unknown, inherited yet unclaimed.

This work lives in the space between data and memory, science and spirit – exploring how deeply the past can live within us, even when it’s hidden from view.