Welcome to
my online portfolio. I have included my bio, artist's statement,
selected research, and several galleries of my work that includes:
Runaway! Going, Going, Gone
To Be Sold
(Re)Calling the Spirits
The Kickapoo Medicine Show
Masques
Myths, Magic, and Meaning
Family Album
The Grandmothers
Runaway! Going, Going, Gone
My
mixed media painting series, Runaway: Going, Going, Gone,
is inspired by a recent discovery of “Wanted” advertisements from
the 1700s and early 1800. These
ads describe runaway enslaved people of African descent in,
sometimes minute, details. Descriptions of hair color and styles,
clothes, complexion, scars, size, and demeanor conjure vivid
images in a real and tangible ways. Lucy,
the first in this series (1809) was a 17 year old of dark complexion
who went to the market and never returned. A $5 reward if offered
To Be Sold
To Be
Sold” series is also based on advertisements from the 1700s and early
1800s. While the Runaway ads
describe enslaved people of African descent in
sometimes minute details, the To Be Sold
advertisements were brief ads tuck in between
larger ads. No names. No visual description. Just
“"To be sold”. As I came across more and more, I
became curious. Who are they? Where did they go?
Were they being separated from their families?
Will they run away? The gold in the works and
frame references the use of people as chattel.
(Re)Calling
the Spirits
(Re)Calling
the Spirits, explores symbolism, icons, and affects/effects that
resonate from my Africa and Native cultural past. By doing so, I
answer the call and (re)call that the past is present and yesterday
was once tomorrow.
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The Kickapoo
Medicine Show
There
are 6 pieces thus far. Two Connecticut residents, John E Healy and
Charles Bigelow, formed the "Kickapoo Company" which was housed in New
Haven, Connecticut. The building was called "The Principal Wigwam
Company. Healy and Bigelow made large profits and exploited the
Kickapoo Indian name. The Kickapoo Nation was not involved and
received no compensation. This mixed media collage series alters
facsimiles of photos from the 1800s of Kickapoos and the
advertisements for "Kickapoo" medicines.
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Masques
Masque: "refers to a form of indoor courtly entertainment popular
during the Renaissance that was characterized by song, spectacular
display, and dance. The costumed dancers in a masque danced first
among themselves and then chose partners from among the spectators,
blurring the distinction between actors and audience."
This
series explores the choreographed rhythms and patterns that both
conceals and reveals our connections to our past. Masks, ceremony, and
symbols blur the lines between the before and the after, the face and
the place. It is a celebration and a festival performance that
affirms spiritual bonds to our ancestry and the power of being
centered.
For
each piece, I've written an Haiku--a short 3 line poem.
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Myths, Magic, and Meaning
Using myths and legends from Africa
(Yoruba), Native America (Cherokee), and Judeo-Christian
traditions, I am extrapolating, interpolating, combining,
paralleling (where appropriate), and refashioning these myths to
compose neo-narratives that reflect my diverse cultural
background––African, Native American, and Christian. To this end,
I am writing neo-story myths and creating a series of studies and
paintings reflective of the ideas, symbols, and content of this
new meta-cultural version.
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Family Album
The Family Album series, concerns family and familiar
memories far away in time and place. Two
sisters––up in the sky, ever so high, swinging so free in the air.
Four little stair-steps on Granny’s front lawn.
Smile! Look in the camera.
Say cheese. Two little cousins sitting on
the back stairs waiting for…something good. Is
that daddy? Is the ice cream man coming?
Family memories add texture to our hearts.
And here on these canvases, I try to touch them, to
experience the tactile mnemonics that are rich, melancholy,
exhilarating, and sad––all at the same time.
The Grandmothers
The Unilisi mixed media painting series is inspired by Kongo
minkisi, Christian symbols, and Cherokee traditions and words.
Minkisi (sing. nkisi), are containers for
medicines and a power spirit that is activated by nailing.
In these Minkisi paintings, the power figure is Unilisi,
which means the Grandmother of many in Cherokee.
The paintings are wrapped, tied, and nailed in a technique reflective
of that used for composing an nkisi. The paintings
contain African symbols like the Ashanti Adinkra symbol, Sankofa,
which expresses the proverb that one must return to the past to build
the future. The shawl the Grandmother wears has
Cherokee syllabary woven in the fabric. It is the
Twenty-third Psalm and represents the melding of Christian and Native
beliefs. Hidden within and attached without are
medicine bundles, powerful objects used by both Native and African
healers.
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Copyright ©February, 2007
Cora Marshall
