Characters and symbols make sense within their context, but when that context is removed absurdity steps in and alienation is portrayed. In my work, I investigate the animal body as a traditional and contemporary symbol, and question how we represent them in culture, translation, and as commodities. These animal allegories provide context to my own feelings of displacement; through visual signifiers of culture, they seek to explore how the idea of what is “traditional” can differ from person to person. By dying, layering, spraying, covering, and wiping out, I bring out this absurdity of alienation and create imagined spaces that question the history of migration, self-recognition, and the power structure behind pop culture and scenarios in commodification. My work is not the story of finding a home; rather, it’s about coming to terms with nomadism and giving up the chase for a destination that never existed.