“Water Life Flow" explores the nuanced relationship between cultural heritage and contemporary identity, inviting viewers to engage with interconnectedness, transformation, and resilience through a process I have developed called Soul Mapping. Soul Mapping is a creative method that fuses personal storytelling, embodied movement, and layered cultural symbolism to chart the journey of emotional healing and growth. For me, it is both a map and a ritual—each artwork becomes a locus for tracing lived experience, ancestral resonance, and the continual unfolding of the spirit.

 

Throughout my practice, I often describe myself as a metaphysicist—not in the academic or theoretical sense, but as an artist who actively investigates the invisible dynamics of being: the spiritual, the emotional, and the energetic forces that animate and transform both materials and human experience. In my art, metaphysicist means an explorer of meaning and connection, someone who seeks to reveal the unseen threads that bind body, memory, and tradition.

 

Water~ Life~ Flow references water’s vital role as life force—healing, resilience, clearing, and cleansing—as honored in Yoruba spiritual traditions. I draw inspiration from the deities Yemaya and Oshun, whose mythologies speak to the sustaining and transformative capacities of water. Yemaya’s association with the ocean directly informs my choice of materials and techniques: I often layer translucent blues, greens, and pearlescent whites with textured mediums like clay, sand, and torn fabric to evoke the movement and depth of tidal waters. The rhythmic layering mimics the ebb and flow of ocean currents, each stratum of paint or fiber like a wave leaving traces on the shore. The act of shaping clay with my hands echoes the physicality of water shaping earth, reminding me of both Yemaya’s nurturing embrace and the ocean’s persistent power.

 

Oshun’s qualities of abundance, beauty, and grace manifest in both my visual language and in participatory experiences I facilitate. Vibrant golds, luminous yellows, and shimmering metallics run through my compositions, conjuring the glimmer of sunlight on moving water. When I invite audiences or workshop participants to engage with my process, I encourage gestures and improvisations that feel lush and generous, movements that swirl, spill, and flow, much like a river in full bloom. In both visual and performative pieces, I strive to embody Oshun’s essence, inviting a sense of joy, sensuousness, and communal flourishing.

 

Much like a metaphysicist, I move between structure and fluidity—where structure represents disciplined technique and fluidity welcomes spontaneous, intuitive expression. I explore the interplay of control and surrender: control in the careful shaping of materials or choreography, surrender in allowing the artistic process to lead me towards discovery. My background in yoga and somatic liberation—a practice focused on reconnecting with the body to release stored emotion—deeply informs these explorations. For example, in movement-based sessions, I’ll guide participants through deliberate, mindful motions, then encourage them to let their bodies respond organically. The resulting gestures often ripple outward, resembling eddies swirling on the surface of a stream. As textured brushstrokes or layered fibers accumulate on canvas, they create tactile surfaces that invite touch and reflection—echoing the sensation of water slipping over skin or stones. Specific colors and textures—silky threads, weathered wood, lustrous beads—are chosen for their ability to evoke the sounds and sensations of rivers and oceans, immersing viewers in the experience of movement and transformation.

 

As an artist-as-healer, I see my creative work as a vehicle for emotional and physical restoration. Rather than viewing each piece in isolation, "Water Life Flow" functions as a cohesive whole—a visual journey reflecting water's transformative properties, life’s continuous movement, and the healing power of creative expression. Each artwork ripples outward, touching viewers like waves that reshape the shore, and inviting them to immerse themselves in the ever-shifting terrain where healing, ancestry, and creation converge.

​

~Keita Annie Whitten Foster