Latifah A Stranack

Painting has always been my happy place to reflect, question and feel connected to all the events around me. My mixed heritage has often been a source of inspiration, and growing up between cultures has created a rich narrative and atmosphere for me to think about and utilise. I have always been fascinated by cultural hybridity and how this can also cause conflict in some situations. Partially revealed, I attempt to reshape my reality and bring memories from the past to life, forever layered in washes of paint, helping me work through subconscious emotions and fears. The work I create empowers me to make sense of who I am as I contemplate my identity and the world around me. I invented my female heroines as a tool to explore these concepts, at times appearing half visible beneath a sheer fabric, eyes staring intently through a traditional batoola mask, or with lids delicately closed, lost deep in contemplation. These women and their surroundings, which I obsessively paint, are all fictional members of my metaphorical tribe. Through painting, I challenge the perceptions of my existence, brown skin from my father and white skin from my mother. The bold figures of my tribe are turned into goddesses, symbolising and celebrating the child, maiden, mother and wise older woman, a vehicle for me to tell my stories and connect with myths and heroines from the past. I am mending all the broken umbilical cords of DNA, separated by time, land and mispronounced vowels, completing me, even in my fragmentation.