The title of this painting by Mia Lee, A Lady from Roatán Always Fixes Her Dinner Last, offers insight into the inspiration for some of the subject matter that influences Lee’s practice. The phrase represents a literal memory from her upbringing. Her family immigrated to the United States from the Honduran island of Roatán, and she recalls how it is a tradition there for a wife to prepare food for her husband first, and then feed the rest of the family afterwards. Lee’s practice is deeply influenced by nostalgia for the people, places, and experiences of her youth. The figures and landscapes come from a liminal space between dream life and reality, a perceptual zone in which angels and monsters coexist, and are sometimes hard to tell apart. “I have recurring dreams that have nightmarish qualities,” says Lee, “but I love them. It depends how you perceive it. All of these things contribute to my different narratives.” The figures are portrayed in a white void, allowing viewers to engage with the content through their own imagination, and the thick surfaces are built up with a mixture of joint compound, acrylics, and house paint, while the skin of the figures is painted with impasto layers of black gesso. “I use the richest colors I can find,” says Lee. “I try to make the colors as vivid as possible, because of how vivid my dreams are. And I portray my figures coming from the Black diaspora, which is so rich and vast. If anything is muted, it won’t come off as I perceive it.”