Hand-painted in 2022 on Procreate, “Africans + African Americans” is the final piece from Ugonna Ikechi’s third solo exhibition In Translation. This painting is inspired by the 2018 poem of the same name by Ogorchukwu. Her poem talks about [metaphorical] twins who had been separated at birth due to colonialism & the slave trade. The Artist’s visual translation depicts a hopeful moment when they/we reunite with each other… coming back to ourselves after all that has had to be overcome.

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“she recounts the day
she gave birth to twins—
how one was pulled
from her arms,
and bound by the slave trade,
how the other remained
in her arms
but was bound by colonization.
she tells me,
’this is what it means to be
separated at birth.’”

Ogorchukwu. “africans and african americans”, the geometry of being Black., 2020, page 11.