About the Artwork
“American Congo and Other Expressions” is a series of mixed-media paintings and three-dimensional works that use discarded objects: buttons, bottles, sea shells, keys, bottle tops, jewelry, syringes, and even a rattrap while honoring the art, culture, and cosmology of the Bakongo people and their neighbors in Central Africa, the Congo. The Nkondi (Minkondi-plural) power figure (nail fetish/sculpture) is a central reference, which is sometimes represented by the belly pack that is usually found on the front torso of Nkondi. It is the place where the spirit/medicine is kept. The Bakongo refer to sacred objects as Minkisi (nkisi-singular). Bakongo art and visual expression is powerful and powerfully moving. Used to discourage trespassers, the Nkondi is among the most recognizable images of the Congo, second only to Kuba masks and stools. Minkisi suggest that there is great power in art. The three-dimensional pieces, introduced by the subtitle “Minkisi/Art, Artifact” make reference not only to the visual expression of Congo people by the reoccurrence of the belly pack, they also honor the art of African descended people (Maroons) of the Sea Islands off the coast of South and North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida who made “memory vessels” as a means of making ancestors a continuous presence in the everyday existence of the living. I do this kind of work because I believe that art objects have power and I hope that my paintings and sculptures make this evident.