garden of daggers
March 9 – March 31, 2024
Guttenberg Arts, 6903 Jackson St., Guttenberg NJ
Garden of Daggers, 2024, Double-sided laser cut mirror, fire glass, mirror, Dims. variable
Press Release
Garden of Daggers transforms the Guttenberg Arts gallery into a reflective environment that is composed of hanging and freestanding-mirrored flora and fauna. Inspired by Fern Gully, a former riverbed, which became a roadway lined with a natural tree canopy and over 300 ferns in my native Jamaica, West Indies, I create an environment that flips between jungle, garden, rainforest, compost heap, flower bed and reflecting pool.
Upon closer inspection, the tropical plants appear to be legs with stiletto heels have a similar physical resemblance to the Lobster Claw, Banana Leaf and Jade Vine, which are native plants found in the backyard of my grandmother’s house in Kingston, Jamaica. The stiletto heels are a direct reference to the high-heeled legs of my muse “Strangefruit”. This muse is a recurring figure that represents marginalized bodies and that of my own body, these bodies that are now part of the landscape. These reflective sculptures capture the light, capture the architecture, colors and reflect the environment back to the viewer however through the sculptures themselves become invisible. As result, the works allude to my personal relationship with alienation, otherness and physical peripheries that I encounter and inhabit.
Confronting the peripheral relationship of intersectional lineage as an Afro-Caribbean-American through the employment of these reflective materials that allows ambiguity and fragmentation of the surrounding space. Exploring the idea of the complexity of heritage, memory and place through these objects.
Dagger Shadows, 2024, Handprinted laser-cut acrylic, vintage silk napkins 14 x 14 in. each
A Collection of Inverse Daggers, 2024, Laser-cut acrylic, Dimensions variable