This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
On November 1, 2019, Joan Sikand's memoir, Sunflower, was published, offering a poignant tribute to her mother's life and art.
The book is a testament to the mother's unwavering spirit, as evident in her oil and pastel paintings, which number almost 50.
These artworks, characterized by their naturalistic and intimate style, showcase the mother's family in domestic poses, as well as lovely landscapes, still life's, nudes, and birds in flight.
What makes these artworks remarkable is the stark contrast between their beauty and simplicity and the mother's painful journey out of North Korea, which involved incarceration, starvation, and torture.
As Sikand recounts in her memoir, her mother's journey was marked by resilience and determination, ultimately leading her to the US on a scholarship, where she met and married Sikand's father.
The mother's life story is intertwined with Sikand's own, as she too received scholarships to Brandeis University and the UK, where she met and married her Kenya-born spouse.
Through her poetry, Sikand reveals the truths of her mother's everyday life experience and the ways in which she managed to overcome hardship through her art.
