Welcome to my online portfolio. I have included my bio, artist's statement, selected research, and several galleries of my work that includes:

Dark Matters

Runaway! Going, Going, Gone

To Be Sold

(Re)Calling the Spirits

The Kickapoo Medicine Show

Masques

Myths, Magic, and Meaning

Family Album

The Grandmothers

Dark Matter
Like many African Americans, I do not know from which country my African ancestors originated. To fill this void, I look for connections to African spiritual traditions and images in a variety of cultures. Once I find imagery that resonates within, I interpret and absorb them to make them my own. The paintings in this series are inspired by art from Benin, Samburu, Maasai, and Bamileke, and other African cultures. I am exploring symbolism, icons, affects and effects that resonate within. By doing so, I seek a bond with those cultures as I try to demystify my past.

Runaway! Going, Going, Gone
My mixed media painting series, Runaway: Going, Going, Gone, is inspired by a recent discovery of “Wanted” advertisements from the early 1800 (Library of Congress).  These ads describe runaway enslaved people of African descent in, sometimes minute, details. Descriptions of hair color and styles, clothes, complexion, scars, size, and demeanor conjure vivid images in a real and tangible ways.  Lucy, the first in this series (1809) was a 17 year old of dark complexion who went to the market and never returned. A $5 reward if offered

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To Be Sold
To Be Sold” series is also based on advertisements from the 1700s and early 1800s.  While the Runaway ads describe enslaved people of African descent in sometimes minute details, the To Be Sold advertisements were brief ads tuck in between larger ads. No names. No visual description. Just “"To be sold”. As I came across more and more, I became curious. Who are they? Where did they go? Were they being separated from their families? Will they run away? The gold in the works and frame references the use of people as chattel.

(Re)Calling the Spirits
(Re)Calling the Spirits, explores symbolism, icons, and affects/effects that resonate from my Africa and Native cultural past. By doing so, I answer the call and (re)call that the past is present and yesterday was once tomorrow.

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The Kickapoo Medicine Show
There are 6 pieces thus far. Two Connecticut residents, John E Healy and Charles Bigelow, formed the "Kickapoo Company" which was housed in New Haven, Connecticut. The building was called "The Principal Wigwam Company. Healy and Bigelow made large profits and exploited the Kickapoo Indian name.  The Kickapoo Nation was not involved and received no compensation.  This mixed media collage series alters facsimiles of photos from the 1800s of Kickapoos and the advertisements for "Kickapoo" medicines. 

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Masques
Masque: "refers to a form of indoor courtly entertainment popular during the Renaissance that was characterized by song, spectacular display, and dance.  The costumed dancers in a masque danced first among themselves and then chose partners from among the spectators, blurring the distinction between actors and audience."

This series explores the choreographed rhythms and patterns that both conceals and reveals our connections to our past. Masks, ceremony, and symbols blur the lines between the before and the after, the face and the place.  It is a celebration and a festival performance that affirms spiritual bonds to our ancestry and the power of being centered.

For each piece, I've written an Haiku--a short 3 line poem.

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Myths, Magic, and Meaning
Using myths and legends from Africa (Yoruba), Native America (Cherokee), and Judeo-Christian traditions, I am extrapolating, interpolating, combining, paralleling (where appropriate), and refashioning these myths to compose neo-narratives that reflect my diverse cultural background––African, Native American, and Christian. To this end, I am writing neo-story myths and creating a series of studies and paintings reflective of the ideas, symbols, and content of this new meta-cultural version.

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Family Album
The Family Album series, concerns family and familiar memories far away in time and place.  Two sisters––up in the sky, ever so high, swinging so free in the air.  Four little stair-steps on Granny’s front lawn.  Smile!  Look in the camera.  Say cheese.  Two little cousins sitting on the back stairs waiting for…something good.  Is that daddy?  Is the ice cream man coming?  Family memories add texture to our hearts.  And here on these canvases, I try to touch them, to experience the tactile mnemonics that are rich, melancholy, exhilarating, and sad––all at the same time.

The Grandmothers
The Unilisi mixed media painting series is inspired by Kongo minkisi, Christian symbols, and Cherokee traditions and words.  Minkisi (sing. nkisi), are containers for medicines and a power spirit that is activated by nailing.  In these Minkisi paintings, the power figure is Unilisi, which means the Grandmother of many in Cherokee.  The paintings are wrapped, tied, and nailed in a technique reflective of that used for composing an nkisi.  The paintings contain African symbols like the Ashanti Adinkra symbol, Sankofa, which expresses the proverb that one must return to the past to build the future.  The shawl the Grandmother wears has Cherokee syllabary woven in the fabric.  It is the Twenty-third Psalm and represents the melding of Christian and Native beliefs.  Hidden within and attached without are medicine bundles, powerful objects used by both Native and African healers.

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Copyright ©October, 2009 Cora Marshall