In this work, Suchitra Mattai practiced what she refers to as “a form of brown restoration,” embroidering an Indo-Caribbean child over the top of a needlepoint depicting a white, European child watching over a lamb. Mattai added a bindi to the head of the child and attached a toy lamb and found, vintage broach to the surface of the work, lending the child a mythic sense of feminine power. “It becomes this intimate moment of this child and her animals,” Mattai says. “She becomes folkloric.” This piece belongs to a series Mattai debuted in 2023, memorializing super heroines as embodiments of feminine empowerment. A lot of these works celebrate the power of women, while simultaneously reimagining colonial narratives. “These elements are tied together, so I find it hard to extricate them,” says Mattai. “The wonder of art is that it doesn’t have to be one element. Stories are complex. I want to portray that in the works.”