Keisha Scarville: Alma

After the loss of her mother in 2015, Keisha Scarville turns to photography to explore the material weight of absence and its emotional imprint on those who remain. Drawing from spiritual and cultural sources, including spirit photography and the ancestral figure of Egungun, Scarville weaves personal memory into visual form.

She incorporates her mother Alma’s clothing and belongings, transforming them into vessels of presence. Through intimate black-and-white portraits, she uses her own body as a site of encounter, giving shape to what is no longer visible. The vibrancy of Alma’s printed fabrics, now faded into monochrome, echoes both the silence of loss and the subtle shifts it leaves behind.

Scarville’s images balance mourning with grace. The photographs do not seek to fill the void, but to dwell in it, making space for tenderness, transformation, and remembrance. With each frame, she crafts a language of grief that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

This body of work becomes a quiet ritual, where absence gains form and memory becomes touchable. It is a visual elegy, rooted in love, shaped by loss, and radiant in its ability to carry presence through time.