Oils on 36x36 inch papered panel
This piece honors ancestors who claimed space through composure, ritual, and self-possession in worlds designed to compress them. His steady gaze and strong posture assert presence. The raised glass functions as both offering and remembrance, a quiet acknowledgment of lives endured, witnessed, and carried forward. 
Despite constraint, surveillance, and enforced restraint, ancestors cultivated dignity through dress, gesture, and ceremony as acts of survival. The egg nestled in the pocket signals futurity and protection, suggesting that endurance was always paired with care for what would come next. This painting insists that taking up space did not require permission but only resolve and that such resolve continues to shape the present.