Alchemist

Centered on the stippled surface is a baboon skull interwoven with the outline of a pair of hands. The skull is a reference to the ancient Egyptian God Hapi, whose baboon head adorns the stopper on the canopic jar responsible for the preservation of the lungs. Hapi is the divine guardian of air, and of alchemical transfer from one state to another. This symbolism can be related to Stopforth’s testimony that moving to Boston provided space for him to breathe because, “America is big enough to provide people with the opportunities to live out their lives regardless of how they feel connected
to, or are affiliated to, the countries that they were born in.”