Fall of Light: Darkest Edition instaling

I think that’s really important to capture: a state of flux and growth.”įor Rawles, the scale of her work too is important in creating this dynamism.

We’re always growing, changing, evolving and moving. None of them are still, they’re not posed portraits - these figures are in motion,” explained Rawles, who has exhibited across the US and internationally, and created the cover art for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2019 debut novel, “The Water Dancer.” “We’re always in motion. I want my work to look like it’s in motion. “What I love about water is what it does to the body, of abstracting the form.

Previous Rawles pieces shown at last year’s Berlin Biennale depicted Black bodies dressed in white clothing, submerged within brighter blue shades.Īs the activist and political theorist Françoise Vergès, who curated a performance at the Biennale, wrote, Rawles tells us that “water is memory…as she juxtaposes Black joy and pain.” In many ways, “A Certain Oblivion” develops a key motif within Rawles’ practice - the depiction of water, its power, and the legacies and memories that it holds.

Fall of Light: Darkest Edition instaling