Mother and Child 2016

Curator: Njideka Akunyili Crosby created "Mother and Child" in 2016. The mixed-media collage and painting employs appropriation, identity politics and figuration. Visually, what jumps out to you? Editor: The layered surfaces – the patterned fabrics and fragmented floor – they create this palpable sense of home and memory, almost tactile. And then there's that contemplative figure...it pulls you in with a kind of quiet invitation, right? Curator: Absolutely. Consider Crosby’s approach: she skillfully melds painting, collage, and even transferred photocopied images, often incorporating Nigerian fabrics, family photos, and popular culture imagery. The labor and its relation to a domestic space come to mind. It's more than just depiction; it’s about how these materials shape identity. Editor: I think that layering is crucial. Like a visual representation of fragmented cultural identities. It hits home the push and pull between embracing heritage and finding your own voice within it, not to mention it gives the work incredible texture. The flatness plays with depth, doesn’t it? Almost dreamlike... Curator: Indeed. The flatness, though seemingly simple, complicates depth. She uses space not literally, but conceptually, invoking memory and displacement, the reality of migration, and questions about place. Think about the way patterns are used to explore diasporic relationships to homeland. The artist engages in conversation with themes present in contemporary African art. Editor: The woman sitting has this melancholy about her but her clothes are just singing to me. I'm drawn to those colors—they create such warmth but somehow the whole artwork feels melancholic! It's that juxtaposition of the familiar and the estranged…it’s powerful. The artist invites contemplation. What's real, what's remembered, and what's imagined… Curator: Precisely, and examining her overall process—how she literally builds up these surfaces, allows for a discussion about the means of representation and construction of history. It gives material form to both presence and absence. Editor: It truly encapsulates something of the African diaspora…memories attached to something new but constantly reminded of something nostalgic…Beautiful. Curator: Well said. Crosby’s work allows us to appreciate how personal history and broader cultural narratives can intertwine in the tangible and intangible.