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| Grasp of the silk cotton 4 |
These images are influenced by a 1956 lithograph signed in pencil by Mexican painter José David Alfaro Siqueiros, simply titled Figura, depicting an unsettling image of a figure in a tree.
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| Grasp of the silk cotton 5 |
It is this unsettlement that I find particularly appealing to add to my Chantuelle translation series. This work, in acrylics and oil pastels on crumpled packaging paper, shows a shadowy ShortKnee figure’s struggle from the grasp of a ceiba, known in Grenada as a silk cotton, a massive tree with buttress roots and a thorny trunk. From days of the plantation era this tree is complete with spiritual connections that made it a perfect private and powerful meeting place for worship, a place connecting earth, sky and underworld.
The faceless, struggling in cultural thorns. ShortKnee is Art.