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The Mother of Fishes
Tears of Our Mothers Lie Within the Seven Seas – Mother of Fishes is a ritual portrait honoring Yemoja, the Yorùbá Orisha of the ocean, often referred to as the “Mother of Fishes.” Known as the protector of children and the embodiment of divine motherhood, Yemoja carries within her the memory of those lost at sea—particularly the African ancestors who perished or survived during the transatlantic slave trade.
In this piece, the subject submerges herself in water, becoming both mourner and medium. Draped in sheer fabrics and encircled by shells, she channels Yemoja not as a mythical figure of the past, but as a living presence—a maternal force who absorbs grief, births healing, and guards the souls who never made it to shore. Her gaze is soft yet watchful. Her body becomes the ocean floor—a vessel of memory and mourning.
The title gestures to the belief that our mothers’ tears have not evaporated but have fused with the salt of the ocean. Within that salt lives sorrow, yes—but also survival. Mother of Fishes is a meditation on what it means to hold and carry so many: lives, loss, lineage.
This work is not a reconstruction of myth, but a call to listen to the waves and the womb of history—to remember that water remembers, and so do we.