The EBB Project // Visual Art

 

 

The above links lead to slide shows of the Visual Art of The EBB Project. The work has been shown in various exhibitions and in installations with the other art objects, performance relics, and photographs created and accumulated as The EBB Project progressed. An Installation expresses the sympathy that exists between things, ideas and disciplines; and for me an Installation has a strong relationship to stage and movie sets. For example, the above left link leads to "Imagine me imagining you/Dream of me dreaming of you", an Interactive Installation created for The Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, MI., exhibited from Dec. 10, 2008 till Jan 18th, 2009.

 

Visual Art emerging from The EBB Project was also a form of research. In other words, the image came first and held ideas that were sometimes further explored by me in both critical and creative writing. A good example of this is "EBB Trinity (Sonnet II)" a mixed-media collage and drawing with text.

 

The three variants of EBB's 1861 final photograph are used in this work. The floating hands in "EBB Trinity (Sonnet II)" are a reference to the spirit manifestations that fascinated EBB and many people in the 19th century. The hands also symbolize inspiration. The quote written on the middle, seated image of Elizabeth is from "Sonnet II" of her Sonnets From the Portuguese:

 

"But only three in all God's universe

Have heard this word thou hast said, --"

 

The word "said" is Love. My focus as a writer and scholar has been on EBB's 44 love sonnets: Sonnets from the Portuguese. In the process of creating "EBB Trinity (Sonnet II)" I began to contemplate EBB's use of three and her conception and presentation of the three who heard the word Love in "Sonnet II." I direct the interested reader to my article: "Sonnet I and Sonnet II of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese: Setting the stage for divine reunification." I explored some of the ideas that came from EBB Trinity in this paper. Find it published in Studies in Browning and His Circle, Volume 26 (September 2005)."

 

 

 

Casa Guidi Cutwind, 1998,

35" H x 42" W.

Another example is Casa Guidi Cutwind, a mixed-media collage of created and found images with poem.

 

Casa Guidi Cutwind uses the shape of the Casa Guidi, the building in Florence where Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning lived for 15 years, and layers it with the image of the Cutwind, a stone masonry building used by EBB's ancestors in Jamaica to escape hurricanes. Both the poets had Jamaican ancestry. The similarity of the shapes struck me, and as the artwork was coming together, I wrote the poem. (seen on the left side of the work) in response to events that occurred in these masonry structures.

Note re Framing: My work is framed between plexi and the intention is to do without a traditional frame as I believe that often frames bordering work distract or add unnecessary elements. My intention is also to recreate the conception of the work: To create a sense of that dynamic moment in time when ideas / words / images come together, are suspended in time, then fixed and made observable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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