Mask Of Monarchy (M.O.M)

( 80cm x 100cm, 2024 ) Takes the well-worn portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and flips it into Sinatra Zantout’s own mix of cultural signs and hard historical questions. Royal jewels are swapped for cowries, and with that single change, “wealth” stops reading as imperial show and starts speaking in African material and spiritual terms.
 
On the brooch, the African continent appears in place of the English cross. Across the dress, yellow trumpet flowers, Nigeria’s national flower, sit where you don’t expect them, quietly pulling the image toward the stories of places shaped by colonisation. The Composition remains recognisable, but the meaning doesn’t stay put.
 
Out of this reworking comes a pointed conversation about colonialism, power, and the lasting gains the British monarchy drew from its colonies. Named Mother of Many Nations, the figure holds onto her formal presence while turning slightly unsettling, authority retold in the visual language of those once governed, and a direct invitation to think about inheritance, extraction, and what history leaves behind.