#postcolonial art

[greenhousebamboo]

Woman Shooting Cherry Blossoms (2019) — Yinka Shonibare CBE

A large-scale sculpture commissioned for the reopening of the Fukuoka Art Museum in spring 2019

Shonibare’s first artwork on a Japanese theme; now part of the museum’s permanent collection

Depicts a headless female figure firing cherry blossoms from a rifle — a striking contrast of violence and beauty

The globe replacing the head erases individual identity, referencing colonialism and globalization

Central theme: the empowerment of women against persistent global gender inequality

The figure is dressed in Dutch wax printed cotton, a fabric with roots in colonial history​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[thejawsdevour]

Gustavo Caboco (Brazilian) - Retorno à Maloca (acrylic on canvas, 2024)

[earthpiecevii]

Kent Monkman, The Ford Erections, 2014, acrylic on canvas

[maertyrer]

Kent Monkman St. Sebastian

Acrylic on canvas, 121.9 x 96.5 cm, 2017

[misscromwellsmonocle]

The Creation of God (2017) by Harmonia Rosales

[yellowmanula]

We visited the Museum of Berber Culture in Agadir today, which feels more like an intimate contemporary art gallery. The museum mainly focuses on painting, juxtaposing the perspective of Orientalists with the experience of the new school that emerged after 1956, when Morocco regained independence (Casablanca School of Painting) and self-taught artists.

Moroccan artists reinterpret the colonial experience and place a strong emphasis on sociology, seeking an identity profoundly transformed after years of colonization. Orientalists primarily painted exotic landscapes and Berber women in traditional attire. The new school, however, moves away from realistic depictions of bodies and representations, focusing instead on the social evolution of traditional ornaments. It replaces realism and mimicry with expression, geometry, and symbolism.

Apart from the museum staff, we were the only visitors there—the rest of the all-inclusive crew was busy practicing their "lounging skills" 😃 I'll be joining them later today 😃

[kaalbela]

Creole Portraits series by Jocelyn Gardner

Creole Portraits is a collection of hand-coloured lithographic portraits that reveal intricately braided Afro-centric hairstyles entwined within iron slave collars which were used to punish female slaves accused of inducing abortion. Each portrait also displays one of thirteen ‘exotic’ botanical specimens identified as having been used to induce abortion in the 18th century. Delicately hand-painted with watercolours, as was characteristic of natural history engravings of the period, each portrait is named after one of the botanical specimens using the established Linnaeun binominal system of nomenclature of the period in tandem with each slave’s plantation name; an act which parodies the imperial taxonomical systems.

[museum-groupie]

Kehinde Wiley, The Lamentation, 2016, oil on canvas, unknown location.

(source)