$150.00 - $250.00

The King

The King (1994).
25w x 38h (in); or 63.5w x 96.5h (cm)

Artist's note:
Mature, wise, loving, kind, strong, and well mannered, the King. Aspects of the King character include the ability to dispense justice tempered with wisdom, being at peace with self, and having feelings of great happiness -

"Long live the King."

The King is spiritually, mentally, and morally strong. he not only stands up for himself and family, but for the community as a whole -

"Long live the King."

Liam's note:
What you see here is one of the Belt mask of Iyoba (Mother of the Oba) Idia. These masks were created by the king Oba Esigie to honor his mother. As he and his descendants led the Kingdom of Benin through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, they would ceremonially don the face of their maternal ancestor once every year. An icon of the feminine becomes essential to the masculine. The king becomes, for a moment, the queen. The masks were looted by the British in 1897. Today this mask is held at the Seattle Art Museum.

My father was very interested in quantum mechanics. You can see that here, with the clouds of color that obscure the background's patterns. Quantum mechanics was designed to make sense of the uncertainty that emerges from natural systems that refuse prediction and resist ordered understanding. One feels a similar uncertainty when trying to understand social systems that have been looted and destroyed. For we that descended from slaves, these patterns would have once held meaning, but all that survives the layers of uncertainty (for us) is the artifact. When we try to use it to reconstruct the environment that produced it, we only succeed in constructing ourselves.