Stories of the sea is a multi-media painting by Indo-Caribbean American artist Suchitra Mattai. The piece is a sort of self-portrait of the artist, whose family heritage is connected to indentured servitude and ocean migration from South Asia to the Americas. Various stylized elements clash within the composition. The background is a baroque pattern based on one of the first colonial prints of Guyana from the 1800s; the embroidered landscape shows tropical trees and waves filling in the negative space; European cherubs adorn the top and bottom of the image; the border fabric is taken from a vintage sari; meanwhile, a pair of embroidered cartoon lightning bolts add to the drama of a cataclysmic moment. Says Mattai, “The sea of course is the site of migration, navigation and power. The narrative here is meant to be non-linear and expansive in ways that are designed to spark a conversation.”