“My work has always dealt with dualities – usually of the wild, feral side in battle with the civil self”
—–Alison Saar
So deeply entrenched in history, myth and a narrative so universal and inclusive, Alison Saar’s work seem to shy away from addressing the elephant in the room. Consisting primarily of Saar’s sculpture and installation work, this exhibition explores the ways in which the legacy of history bears on the body, and how this history both shapes and guides the way society conceptualizes identity. Her interest in the body, specifically the mothering body, present both the corporeal and cultural endurance of African American women.
In her 2013 show “slough” at L.A. Louver, Alison’s work conjured a duality of meaning, and a sense
of both impasse and renewal, that pervades the 15 new works in the exhibition. The title for the exhibition Slough, is defined as “a situation characterized by lack of progress,” or “to cast off or shed dead skin.”
The largest work in the show, Thistle and Twitch (Mombie), depicts a larger-than-life female figure
towering nearly 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, formed by built-up layers of thin paper, with painted barren briars veining beneath the skin’s surface. Massive in scale, yet delicately constructed, the viewer is invited to peer inside her navel to find the hollow form filled with a thicket of brambles. Captured in a transitory state, the figure appears to be exiting a stage of fertility, or rather, experiencing a rejuvenation of new growth following a period of dormancy. The title of this work borrows from Ovid’s Metamorphases and the mythological tale of Demeter (the goddess of harvest) who is overcome with grief when her daughter Persephone (the goddess of spring) was abducted by Hades and held captive in the underworld.
Click here to learn more about Saar’s current show at Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco.