The visual challenge in untangling the figure and background in Toyin Ojih Odutola’s complex drawing reflects the artist’s experience of adapting herself to the different contexts in which she lived as her family moved from Nigeria to Alabama. The contours of the figure— a portrait of one of Ojih Odutola’s two brothers—seem to merge with a backdrop that evokes both a tapestry and a landscape, its patterns and colors reminiscent of the locations of the artist’s childhood homes. The need to assimilate into, or blend in with, one’s surroundings is only one theme of the work. The artist also emphasizes the feelings of love represented in the beautifully executed drawing of her sibling. The piece belongs to a series titled Like the Sea (abbreviated to “LTS” in this drawing’s title) after a passage from Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God: “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”