Inimirce (Immigration)
Oil Paint on Canvas, Paper, Alcohol Marker, Photo, Blue Painter Tape, Oil Pastel, Color Pencil
2026
This painting is a story of immigration and new beginnings for those who make the journey and the future generations. The work's foundation is inspired by the story of Annie Moore and her journey as an Irish immigrant. She was the first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island when it opened, and as a result, she received a ten-dollar gold coin.
I decided to represent her story as a body double, exchanging an Irish passport for the coin. I replaced my face with my grandmother’s, using images from when she immigrated to New York in her twenties, as I wanted her to visually represent Annie’s story.
The top layer is an image of a famine boat, like those that would have carried immigrants during the Great Famine. The boat also represents how Annie and my grandmother traveled to America.
The work is a journey of how one decision—to leave the world they knew and create a new one—would later become the only world future generations would know. The other world becomes stories that are shared or that fade into the past.