In this multimedia painting, Suchitra Mattai transforms a colonial backdrop—literally taking a page from a colonial book—into a stage for new myths. Mattai paints a female figure stepping out from an idealized environment. On the other side of the composition, her shadow self, a red and black tiger—a symbol of bravery, fierceness, majesty, and beauty—peeks out towards an unknown future. The placid colonial backdrop is transformed into a dynamic, exciting and colorful world of magic through the use of materials and techniques suggestive of the types of domestic labor normally associated with the females in Mattai's Indo-Caribbean ancestry. Her female ancestors came from South Asia to work as indentured servants in Guyana. Mattai's paintings frequently become an arena in which she can construct stories of female empowerment, extending her family's legacy towards a future she is manifesting from a fully individuated perspective.