From Wandering Boy To King

No.7 of 24
Mothers Are For Other Boys SERIES
( Each piece representing my state of mind from year 1-24, in the absence of a mother )
Mixed Media Sculpture / Mask
32cm x 120cm x 32cm
2025

—
I never knew my mother.
At 7, I don’t even know her name.
I was too young, too small to remember, yet old enough to start wondering about her absence.

One day, I asked why I had been given the name King. It felt unusual, even strange, for a boy of my heritage.

I was told that my mother, who did not speak a word of English, had once watched a film on television, The King and I. She loved the word, its sound, its meaning. So when I was born, she gave me that name. King.

To her, I was not just her child.
I was her son. Her King.

She could not have known it then, but by naming me so, she gave me more than a title. She gave me something to grow into, a word that would teach me what it means to stand tall, to be unafraid of standing apart, to carry courage while navigating an unpredictable world.

That name became my inheritance. Without her arms around me, without ever hearing her voice, I carried it like an heirloom. Not only as my middle name, but defiantly as my last name. It became the foundation of my identity. Bit by bit, Jase King began to emerge.

Wherever she was, alive or gone, I knew that this word would always bind me to her.
My tie to my mother.
My crown.
A crown I now wear with new found purpose.