Breath Portraits: SeaWomen

A series of ink and watercolour portraits depicting the elderly female pearl divers of Jeju island completed while Karikis held a single breath. The process of making each painting draws a link between the artist’s performance practice and the diving women’s work. The watercolour portraits verge on liquefaction, at once portraying the South Korean diving women’s elemental connection with water, the precariousness of their work and their fragile community.