I am deep in the studio, working on my upcoming exhibition We Walk Towards the Water.

This series is both personal and collective. It honors the women of the Caribbean diaspora — mothers, caretakers, and community builders — who arrived in the U.S. during the 1980s and ’90s. These women crossed oceans to nurture America’s children and elders, often at the expense of their own families left behind.

Their journey of sacrifice and resilience shaped the world I grew up in, and their memory flows through this work.

Through more than twenty large-scale paintings, I am exploring the tension between migration and belonging, the beauty and the cost of survival, and the truths carried across water. The exhibition is a meditation on lineage, memory, and forward motion — a story both historic and urgently present.

We Walk Towards the Water will premiere in March 2026.

— Vivia Barron