Creole Portraits III

2009 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

91.44 x 60.96 cm

Joscelyn Gardner


Creole Portraits III alludes to the 18th century practice by slave women on Caribbean plantations of using tropical plants as natural abortifacients. As an act of political resistance against their exploitation as “breeders” of new slaves and to protest the inhumanity of slavery, some slave women chose to either abort or kill their offspring. Armed with practical knowledge passed on orally from their African ancestors and/or Amerindian counterparts, enslaved Creole women collected the seeds, bark, flowers, sap, and roots from various plants which allowed them to secretly put an end to their pregnancies. The lithographic portraits reveal intricately braided Afro-centric hairstyles viewed from behind entwined within the iron slave collars which were used to punish female slaves accused of inducing abortion. Each portrait also displays one of the botanical specimens used for this purpose.


Joscelyn Gardner is a Caribbean / Canadian visual artist working primarily with printmaking and multimedia installation. Her contemporary practice probes colonial material culture found in British / Caribbean archives in order to explore her identity from a postcolonial feminist perspective. Since 2000, Gardner has been living in Canada where she is a full-time Professor in the School of Art & Design at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, and founding Chair of the artist collective, Print London.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

The Ecdysiast - Molt (Body Inspection)
© » KADIST

Yao Qingmei

2017

Satirizing an airport security checkpoint, The Ecdysiast – Molt (Body Inspection) by Yao Qingmei offers a comedic and critical inquiry into the logics underpinning collective control and surveillance culture...

Nancy Brooks Brody (12 septembre 1962-8 décembre 2023)
© » LE BEAU VICE

Le Beau Vice: Nancy Brooks Brody (12 septembre 1962-8 décembre 2023)...

The Radical, Ancient Future of Psychotherapy…While Black
© » KADIST

The Radical, Ancient Future of Psychotherapy…While Black A zoom round table with Kathleen Brennan, LCPC; Mellody Hayes, MD and LaMisha Hill, PhD...

Hair Warp - Travel Through Strand of Universe, 8
© » KADIST

Ashmina Ranjit

2020

While most of Ashmina Ranjit’s work has been large-scale installations, often immersive and site-specific, the series Hair Warp – Travel Through Strand of Universe is a brilliant concentration of both her beliefs and aesthetic...

Vietnam’s visual arts and COVID-19
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Vietnam's visual arts and COVID-19 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Nguyen Duc Phuong July 30, 2020 By Quyen Hoang (2,100 words, 8-minute read) On a rainy evening towards the end of May 2020, it seemed like Saigon’s most dapper guys and modish gals all flocked to Galerie Quynh...

Dance Sticks
© » KADIST

Brian Tripp

2010

For many years Tripp has been involved in reviving Karuk ceremonies that had been discontinued for decades, he developed his signature abstract style, based in Karuk design, ceremonial regalia forms, and related cultural and political iconography...

Grazyna Kulczyk on the Importance of Humility in Art Collecting, and the Marxist Artwork in Her Bathroom - via artnet news
© » LARRY'S LIST

We spoke to the Polish collector about her wide-ranging collection of women artists and her private museum in the Swiss countryside....

Days of Our Lives: Playing for Dying Mother
© » KADIST

Wong Hoy Cheong

2009

Created for the tenth Lyon Bienniale, in Days of Our Lives: Playing for Dying Mother, Wong’s ongoing negotiation of postcolonial globalization takes aim at French society...

Confronting Mortality: Sophie Calle’s Personal Exhibition at Musée Picasso – till January 7, 2024
© » DIANE PERNET

Confronting Mortality: Sophie Calle’s Personal Exhibition at Musée Picasso – till January 7, 2024 – A Shaded View on Fashion Dear Shaded Viewers, The Musée Picasso in Paris hosts “À toi de faire, ma mignonne,” an exhibition from October 3, 2023, to January 7, 2024, spanning all four floors...

Tissue II
© » KADIST

Nathan Lewis

2021

Nathan Lewis has always made figurative and abstract drawings, which are related to anatomical textures and patterns he encountered when working as an ICU nurse...

In the Artist’s Studio – A Photo Essay
© » ART AND CAKE

In the Artist’s Studio – A Photo Essay – Art and Cake June 20, 2023 June 20, 2023 Author In the Artist’s Studio – A Photo Essay Julie Lipa https://julielipaartist.com/ @julielipaartist My shop only looks this clean and tidy after I’ve finished a piece and I need a clean slate to start something new...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Wade Guyton

2016

This untitled print by Wade Guyton depicts an iteration of elements that are characteristic of the artist’s work...

Landscape: the virtual, the actual, the possible?
© » KADIST

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” —Marcel Proust Landscape: the virtual, the actual, the possible? considers visual, perceptual, and conceptual systems that have become increasingly unstable, both physically and metaphorically...

Mapa Mundi BR (postal)
© » KADIST

Rivane Neuenschwander

2007

Mapa-Mundi BR (postal) is a set of wooden shelves holding postcards that depict locations in Brazil named for foreign countries and cities...

Le mouton noir
© » KADIST

Eric Dizambourg

2010

Eric Dizambourg’s film presents a bucolic and ludicrous world used as a background for a character who is an actor as well as a performer...

Haig Aivazian: 1440 couchers de soleil par 24 heures
© » KADIST

Haig Aivazian 1440 sunsets per 24 hours Between the World Cup in 1998 and the Euro Cup in 2016, cameras (SD, to HD to 6K) and dizzying corporate and policing algorithms, have produced and captured the slippages of profiles in and around the Stade de France...

The Storyteller
© » KADIST

Katia Kameli

2012

Katia Kameli’s film The Storyteller explores the cultural role of deep-rooted artistic tradition in Morocco...

Picasso's 'Woman with a Watch' fetches $139 million at New York auction
© » FRANCE24

Picasso's 'Woman with a Watch' fetches $139 million at New York auction Skip to main content Picasso's 'Woman with a Watch' fetches $139 million at New York auction One of Pablo Picasso's masterpieces, "Woman with a Watch," was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby's in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist...

Untitled #185, 65, 535 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 16 colors
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

John Houck’s brown- , sienna- and golden-toned composition, Untitled #185, 65, 535 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 16 colors , features densely packed lines of color moving diagonally across the creased page...