Ancestor series came about as I tried to remember what my mothers people looked like. We moved country when I was very small and never met most of mothers 16 brothers and sisters again. The portraits are part fantasy and part reality, as a child to me they looked worried and serious. Later I was to learn they found it a great strain to be in a foreign country adjusting to the language, making ends meet and putting their children into school  before their husbands had arrived to join them.