"Still Life with Aquarium" directly references European and Dutch still life painting from the colonial era, a genre known as “memento mori” that pointed metaphorically to human mortality in a rich display of colonial plunder. Usually thought of as benign grouping of objects, the artist sees in these paintings stories of colonialism, ill-gotten gains and black labor. Often, the work incorporated images of black “servant boys,” just visible outside the frame deployed to serve as symbol of the European subject’s wealth. Such paintings express the paradoxical visibility and invisibility of black people within the European colonial world.