Steph Martei
Queen of Hearts

As an artist my work focuses on individuals and giving them room to take up spaces unapologetically. This notion was inspired by the adversities and discrimination I faced as an immigrant child growing up Australia. A key figure that encouraged me the most, and still does, is my mother.  

When my family first moved to Australia from Ghana , I would always come home from school crying because other kids would make fun of my hair, my accent, my skin, or the type of food I brought to school. When my mum asked me what was wrong, I was always reluctant to share because I knew she was also facing challenges of her own. She was a single mother of three with a post-polio syndrome that affected her leg, who was forced to work long hours to provide for her family both in Australia and back in Ghana. Regardless of all that, she would always sit me on her lap, hold my hands, say a short prayer, then we would laugh at a crazy story that had happened at work that day. She would always tell me to not listen to the negative things people would say to bring me down, that everything I am more than enough and that I have every right to exist and own my space.  

It took years to truly understand what she meant but once I did, I carried it with me everywhere I went and in everything I did. For me, this piece is not only a reminder of how I was able to push through in a society that belittled me, but also a reminder of my purpose and intention as an artist.