Wounded Across all Innocence
Titles
Wounded Innocence (Left)
Across All Boundaries (Middle)
Roses & Thread (Right)
Year:
1994
Medium:
Mixed media on canvas — Triptych
Dimensions:
8'(H) x 4'(W)
Photo Credits:
Steve Cohn
Collector:
Collection of artist
Title
Sugar Cane Sweeties (Below)
Year:
1994
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas — Triptych
Dimensions:
8'(H) x 10'6"(W)
Photo Credits:
Steve Cohn
Collector:
Collection of artist
“The theme of wounds continues in another triptych, this time an explanation is sought with an attempt at healing. In 1992, Annalee co-founded RA (Representing Artists) a union created to give voice to artists, educate the public about art and to raise standards of excellence. Its existence was short-lived with the final of six newsletters published in mid-1994. Ironically the very barriers it was envisioned to cross over would prove instrumental in its destruction. Class divisions and racial polarity proved too raw and infected to be merely bandaged up. Wounded Innocence is about betrayal, a betrayal based on ignorance. Prejudicial biases handed from one generation to another forever branded on the minds of our impressionable youth. A large gaping wound emerges menacingly from an enclosed garden. The garden, a metaphor for the cycles of life, becomes the wound from which we emerge into a hostile environment, creating an eternal abyss between our people. A ghostly contoured drawing of a hand appears, its finger hesitantly probes the wound, searching only to discover that it extends Across All Boundaries of society. Printed images by the artist of a previous work (Putting on my blackness) portray her soul-searching and questioning of identity. Roses and Thread conveys an attempt at healing. Here, roses spring to life, fertilized by the artist’s attempt to cross boundaries (Putting on my blackness), the garden becomes the guide to reconciliation as the hand begins to stitch together the wound, seemingly unaware of the foreboding streaks of dried blood that remain.”
—Colleen Lewis 1997 extract from catalogue article.
“Sugar cane Sweeties is a triptych that explores the tensions of our stratified society. The first panel depicts a severed hand gripping a stalk of cane, an omen sent from the past in memorial of those who were forced to sacrifice life and limb to the plantation. A cutlass emerges from the first scene onto the next, its bloody blade responsible for the open wound inflicted on the hearts of our people. Painful memories released in a torrent of blood, violently imposing on our identity. The local sweets of childhood memory, called “comfort”, “basket” and “cock’s head” dangle helplessly, unable to comfort the pain. No one is immune. Even the plantation appears lifeless, lynched by the very forces it tried to subjugate. A cupcake hangs in the balance, a sweet delectable of refined sugar; blood stained and impotent.”
— Colleen Lewis 1997 extract from catalogue article.
