Fisherman Knot

2024

Fisherman Knot is a personal reflection on connection to an unknown ancestry. It relates to my encountering with fishermen in the coastal village of Yene, Senegal, where I watched them cast nets into the sea. During the short trip, my reflective moments by the sea were a fundamental part of my experience there: in my first time on the Eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean, I had never felt so close to home while being away. As a mixed-race Brazilian with no definitive traces of my family’s past – a product of colonization itself – standing on the shores of West Africa prompted thoughts about the possible violent paths that my ancestors took across that same waters.

The knots on the piece, traditionally used by fishermen, are a symbolic gesture of ties that persist across time and distance. The knot embodies both the reconnection with a past that is felt more than known. It is through this act of making that I attempt to acknowledge the invisible lines between Brazil and Senegal, between myself and those who came before me.

Fisherman Knot, 2024, 89 x 39 cm, acrylic and thread on canvas