Becoming Native

Becoming Native begins from a moment of being seen from the outside; how perception shifts depending on who is looking, and from where. Developed in London, the work reflects on how Latin American bodies are read through inherited colonial lenses.

Across two acrylic paintings, the figures appear fragmented, partially erased, and unsettled. In one, a single body is surrounded by yellow, while its form, painted in violet, begins to break apart; sections are digitally removed, leaving a surface that feels almost mechanical, as if the body is being reconstructed and undone at the same time.

In the second, two figures; myself and a friend from Bolivia; are held within a thin outline. Inside this space, scenes of colonisation emerge; a priest raising a cross, imposing belief onto an Indigenous body. These images are not separate from us; they exist within, shaping how we are seen and how we understand ourselves.

The work does not seek to resolve this tension; it exposes how perception, history, and the body remain entangled; unstable, layered, and continuously reformed.