My name is Hajer Deyaf, I am an Oil Painter and Printmaker based in Austin, Texas. My work explores the relationship I have with my Libyan heritage and Islamic religion while addressing my personal struggles of being a first generation immigrant living in the United States. Each piece is a documented critical study of myself and my ancestry; decolonizing my mind, body, and personality in order to reconnect back to my cultural roots and find my point of origin again. With influences taken from the Renaissance era of art and design, I appropriate and create portraits, either of myself or other human figures of importance to me, using similar iconography found in Eurocentric style arts. This appropriation is my way of speaking to the supremacy of colonialism and its forceful influence on its surrounding nations. It is heartbreaking to see your civilization fall to the greed of exploitative imperialist tactics. The dismantling of racial hierarchy is past due; I am making room for a new wave or cultural awareness.