The Sealky, 1996 Digital

Shows the reclining figure of a sealky woman with a face tattooed in swirls and long red hair, beside a seal on the right and a Maori tiki on the left hand side.

Described by Gianni Menichetti in 'Notes about Vali's drawings in this book', p. 10-11 (YMS 16336, Box 6/3): "A legend tells us of the inhabitants of a region below the depths of the ocean who are able to ascend to the land above by donning a seal-skin, which then they are wont to lay off, and having divested themselves of it they act like men and women. If this skin is taken away from them, they cannot pass through the sea again and return to their orignal abode, and they become subject to the power of humans. 'I am a man upon the land, I am a sealky in the sea. (From an old Scottish popular balland). A wild woman with a face tattooed in swirls like a Maori warrior, a 'tiki' near her left thigh. Vali's mother was from New Zealand and used to call her daughter jokingly: "The wild woman from Borneo"."

There is a loose pencil sketch of two faces and some ink marks on the reverse of this drawing at H2019.292/22A.