David Alfaro Siqueiros was a Mexican social painter who depicted the working class’ struggles, social and racial injustice and economic hardship, satirical scenes of social or political protest. As I search for my own artistic voice, my ShortKnee translations are taking me into works where the artist voices the people. Siqueiros’ 1961 work entitled Enough is a heart wrenching comment of struggle and hardship. The painting captured me, because I remembered my shaky Shakespeare, in particular Hamlet. In that tragic play, there were clown characters playing gravediggers (Vecco???) who unearthed a skull of another clown and presented it to Hamlet – perhaps a symbol of his impending death.
My version long titled That skull could sing once shows the ShortKnee cradling a skull (perhaps his deceased brethren) and listening to it declare ominously that he, and by extension, they, are victims of murder, murder by societal decree.
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| That skull could sing once |
Currently I am translating and reinterpreting other artists’ works on war, migration, desolation and isolation, in particular with works featuring pierrot-type figures, as part of a vigorous self-directed visual study of our present day ShortKnee. This character is a compromise on disguise – a fusion of West African Egungun and French theatre elements – whose recollections once made bearable the suffering of slaves on the plantations of Grenada, and which is now, a carnival icon. Once a disguise and a way to compromise, the ShortKnee is today, in this artist’s opinion, the iconic instrument of the history of Grenada, and a subject worthy of vigorous visual artistic study.