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Converging Identities (2025) unfolds the self into a series of coexisting realities that intersect and transform over time. The work explores the tension between two cultural identities through language, positioning the act of inscribing a name as both a declaration of belonging and a reflection on the dual nature of a single self. One name appears in English, representing an identity formed within the Australian context. The other is written in Punjabi, recalling a self grounded in India. Together, they articulate a continuous negotiation between place, heritage and lived experience.
Influenced by Japanese Noh theatre and the artist’s affinity with birds, the masks function as symbolic extensions of the body, mediating the relationship between self and environment. Relief and intaglio processes are used in dialogue, with raised and incised surfaces operating as a metaphor for layered, reversible identity. Internal and external selves are shown to imprint upon one another, and the overlapping masks suggest that identity is simultaneously constructed and revealed through contact with the world.
Converging Identities responds to the 2005 QCAD folio box Parallels Crossing, which examined where paths, experiences and perspectives meet. By bringing together bilingual inscription, mask imagery and the interplay of printmaking techniques, the work extends these concerns into a contemporary consideration of hybrid identity.
