Self-portrait by Irénée Shaw, Trinidad
pocfineartnudes:Irénée Shaw
Ayrson Heraclito (C)
Ayrson Heraclito (C)
Ayrson Heraclito (C)
Gissette Padilla was born in Coro, Falcon, Venezuela, but moved to Houston, Texas at the age of 8. She received her BFA in Painting from UH and her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from UTSA. Below is a recent interview with the Houston-based artist. For more information on her work, check out her…
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Ayrson Heráclito (b. 1968), “Nanã,” 2011
Ayrson Heráclito’s artistic work analyzes the complexity of values pertaining to African heritage in Brazil, while laying bare the colossal size of the historical and conceptual gap regarding the subject…[I]n the last two decades this artist developed a series of works using organic materials present in the culture of Bahia, such as sugar, charque [jerked beef], and dendê [palm oil]. Based on various data (historical, sociological, economic, etc.), his work proposes reflection on several cultural issues pertaining to African-Bahia.
Paul Christopher Johnson writes,
Naná Buruku is a female orixá associated with the primordial depths of the cool mud at the bottom of the sea and underground. She is among the first of the pantheon, said to have been present during creation itself, and in some myths is portrayed as the consort of Oxalá (or Obatala, another name for the same sky father and human creator). But because of her great age she is also linked with death and plays an important role in dispatching the dead to orun, the otherworld of the ancestors…Naná originally appeared in the myths of the West African Fon, a neighbor and rival to the Yoruba city-states, where she was the mother of the sacred twins Mawu and Lissa, who appear in the pantheon of Haitian Vodou. Thus her appearance in the Brazilian Candomblé of the Ketu nation reveals the flexibility of the orixa pantheon and its ability to assimilate new—albeit, in this case, very old—sources of power.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m26e6uZbAN1qjeot1o1_400.jpg)
Ayrson Heráclito (b. 1968), “Nanã,” 2011
Paul Christopher Johnson writes,
Naná Buruku is a female orixá associated with the primordial depths of the cool mud at the bottom of the sea and underground. She is among the first of the pantheon, said to have been present during creation itself, and in some myths is portrayed as the consort of Oxalá (or Obatala, another name for the same sky father and human creator). But because of her great age she is also linked with death and plays an important role in dispatching the dead to orun, the otherworld of the ancestors…Naná originally appeared in the myths of the West African Fon, a neighbor and rival to the Yoruba city-states, where she was the mother of the sacred twins Mawu and Lissa, who appear in the pantheon of Haitian Vodou. Thus her appearance in the Brazilian Candomblé of the Ketu nation reveals the flexibility of the orixa pantheon and its ability to assimilate new—albeit, in this case, very old—sources of power.
(via fyeahblackhistory)
