An elder woman from the Mursi village near the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia. The lip plates are given to the female in the tribe around the age of 15 or 16 by their fathers. Their bottom row of teeth are knocked out to allow the plate to sit and the lower lip is cut so that the plate can also fit in the lip like an earring. The lip plates are small in size initially and as the hole in the lip elongates and the female ages, she receives different lip plates that signify her status in the village. Medium: Oil on canvas

Jay Golding

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Jay Golding’s figurative paintings and drawings evoke mythology, migration, and interconnectedness, creating literal and symbolic layers employed by vibrant palettes in acrylics and oils, sometimes incorporating collaged or impastoed elements. Golding’s emphasis on tribal cultures within his work, often infuses Caribbean and African cultural motifs allowing him to draw parallels between various communities–expressed by his masked figures and other fictional characters such as the purple-skinned beings from the village “Maji ya bluu”, which is Swahili for blue water. Golding frequently signs his work under the pseudonym Kwame, a name he donned after visiting Ghana in 2019 with his family. He cites his trip to the West African nation as well as Mexico as being life changing and having profound effects on his work.