Scattered Reliquary
This work was made during a period of adjustment to a new environment when the strangeness of objects not belonging was emphasized by a personal feeling of loss and a sense of displacement. The collaged work consists of an old portable pocket-map of Europe torn along it’s folds and placed systematically across a substrate of linear ink marks that run haphazard across the surface. Tracks or passages, meandering between, under and across the rectangles of map, are introduced through the application of thin strips of paper cut from an old dictionary. Upon each of the 18 bits of map an iconic image is rendered in oil paint. The painterly treatment is meticulous and precious, and the centered and usually singular objects assume a relic-like resonance. All the objects, in various ways, stand for loss whether through personal choices, or theft, or violent cultural hi-jacking. Some objects are personal and quite banal, while others have cultural significance and have had important functions in collective identities. All the objects are removed from their places of origin and have been thrust into the world where their meanings have been remade and their values renegotiated. All the objects stand for people who have likewise been thrust into the world and have had to reinvent themselves and renegotiate their own value.
LIST OF OBJECTS
Zimbabwean Mbira – (Thumb Harp),
Atlanta, GA, USA
3 slices of toast, Atlanta, GA, USA
Bamana Chiwara Dance Crest.
Met.Museum, NYC, USA
Makonde Body Mask, Tanzania,
Musee de L'Homme in Paris, France
Clock
Chokwe Stool, Angola,
Musee Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, Belgium
Dan Mask, Liberia, Brooklyn Museum, USA
Bowl of Blood
Envelope
Luguru Chair, Tanzania,
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA
Kongo Nail Fetish,
Musee Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, Belgium
Notebook
Zulu Spoon (female),
Musee de L'Homme in Paris, France
Venda Bowl,
Atlanta, GA, USA
USB Memory file of family
Photos, NYC, USA
Michelle Kriel’s grandmother’s shoes, Atlanta Ga, USA
Pillow
Afrikander Riempie Stool,
Atlanta, GA, USA