| Water and boats figure in many of Marshall’s paintings from the mid-1990s as a metaphor for spiritual transformation but also for the African Diaspora and the Middle Passage. Subtle line drawings and numbers that decorate Voyager’s painted field derive from Afro-Cuban nsibidi and anaforuana signs and symbols. The painted roses, egg shapes, and collaged medical illustrations of embryos encompass themes of birth, death, and regeneration. Marshall’s theme of the journey of life is coupled with the story of the nineteenth-century luxury schooner Wanderer, “the largest and fastest ship in the New York Yacht Club, and one of the most beautiful.” In fact, Wanderer was secretly outfitted to carry African slaves to Georgia in 1858, making it the last known ship to land slaves in the United States. The painted destination of Marshall’s Wanderer is inconclusive, teetering between an optimistic conclusion, alluded to by the roses and rainbow in the clouds, and a more ominous ending, suggested by the skull placed directly under the hull...
- Terrie Sultan, formerly Curator of Contemporary Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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