(2019 series) Fine art print on 1.5” gallery wrap canvas, black border edges.

Niangui’s story:

Her relative told me that Niangui had never spoken in her life. As she methodically shelled peanuts, I could not elicit eye contact with her, nor was there any sign of her hearing my attempts at interaction. Tragically, her profound mental handicap did not keep her from the sordid abuse of men, and thus she became pregnant with yet another child.

In some ways, hearing Niangui’s life recounted seemed to show the darkest, most hopeless aspect of this world…which is why what happened a few months later was especially profound.

It was the day I realized that the strength of a mother’s instinct goes beyond all logic. She had recently given birth, and the baby had just come into our care at the Mwana Refuge at only a few days old. That night, separated from her daughter, she mourned. She searched. She was restless. In darkness, the hope is this: that which was separated will yet forever be connected.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

Isaiah 49:15