Previous Artworks > 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