Ikenga means 'place of strength/strength of movement' and is a horned Alusi or deity and is owned and tended by men, and occasionally powerful and respected women.

Importantly Ikenga is regarded as holding a person's Chi - his personal god, his Ndichie - his ancestors, their right hand, power, and is representative of achievement. It is a spiritual focus through prayer and sacrifice and can be personal or communal. Its symbolism is very complex and multi-layered.

My use of this image is also complex and comes from a desire to connect to my family’s culture and understand its relevance to where I find himself now in a European environment.

I am experimenting with screen printing on ceramics using images I created through collages of Ikenga images. The photoshopped images are broken up, turning the into a pattern. These coded images, this method of taking a complex image and creating a pattern is what I ultimately used and screen print onto ceramic tiles.