Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Raised on a Cuban sugar plantation, María Magdalena Campos-Pons—who has Nigerian, Chinese, and Hispanic lineage—frequently references diasporic history and feminism in her artwork. This print (the first work by the artist in our collection) relates to the drawing, Thinking of It. Like much of Campos-Pons’s work it includes iconography of the sea, both in reference to her family’s history of slavery and her own migration to the United States. Suggesting a mixture of loss and longing, a young girl looks toward the horizon, while tethered to the beach by long vegetative forms. A small bell with tiny footprints hints at her childhood. The plants may also reference rituals of Santeria, Candomblé, or Yoruba religions.