SEA FEARING PEOPLE  is a powerful, expressionist meditation on fear, resistance, and the cost of freedom. The fragmented swimmer’s form, painted in bold slashes of red, blue, and yellow against a sea of thick black, mimics the motion of a freestyle stroke—arms cutting through water, head turned mid-breath—yet here, the sea is not blue but void-like, consuming. This is not leisure; it is survival. TAKI provocatively titles the piece “SEA FEARING PEOPLE" reclaiming a stereotype often levied against Africans—that they fear the sea. Historically, many did not fear it; they feared what lay on the other side of it—enslavement. And yet, some leapt into it. TAKI’s painting honors those who jumped—into the Atlantic, into uncertainty, into war—not because they didn’t fear the sea or death, but because freedom was worth the dive into darkness. The sea becomes a metaphor for war and life’s brutal unknowns, and swimming becomes an act of courage, defiance, and sacrifice. The black background swallows the figure, echoing how many are lost to history, but in TAKI’s hands, this swimmer becomes immortal—a tribute to all who chose death over chains, who swam into terror to touch liberation, even if just for a moment.