Mequitta Ahuja consistently reimagines the vocabulary of self-portraiture. Ahuja experiments here with a new technique using the medium of oil paint sculpturally. She creates her figures with the physical dimension of paint using accumulation to develop line and depth. The artist lays a thick monochromatic coat of paint onto the surfaces, which she then pushes, shapes, and scrapes away. Through the withdrawal of paint, she uses loss and removal to depict images of herself and her mother together. This body of work functions as a form of grief, having been made during the final months and days of the artist’s mother’s life. While these works are deeply personal for Ahuja, they also speak to our collective mourning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and global crisis. In equal measure, this work embodies anguish and love.