Ashes & María

Installative paintings and performances playing with archipelagos’ global intimacies.

Himmelsleiter and Ashes, after Steve McQueen and La Soufriére, are personal reconnections with forms of death and destruction that are inextricable from island living, which are undertaken by referencing mental health crises, gun violence and natural disasters.

The Maria works are collaborations between Felisha Carenage, Luiza Furtado and Anne Meerpohl. The aqueous Maria is a changeable figure who serves as the artistic alter ego of the three painters. In this way, they deal with care-work, friendship, sexual capital and memory.

Installative paintings and performances playing with archipelagos’ global intimacies. Himmelsleiter and Ashes, after Steve McQueen and La Soufriére, …

Installative paintings and performances playing with archipelagos’ global intimacies.

Ashes

ASHES I (after Steve McQueen), 2021-22
120x160cm
Acrylic and Charcoal on Linen

After the video work, Ashes (2002-2015), by Steve McQueen, which he had filmed in Grenada.

ASHES II (after La Soufriére), 2021-22
120x160cm
Acrylic and Charcoal on Linen

After the eruption of La Soufriére volcano, on St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

ASHES II (after La Soufriére), 2021-22 110x150cm Acrylic and Charcoal on Linen — Photo: Eiko Wenzel

ASHES II (after La Soufriére), 2021-22 120x160cm Acrylic and Charcoal on Linen

Each Ashes painting features mappings of West Indian Home Gardens on the back of their canvases. These gardens reflect the cuisine and spiritual practise of households; their main constellations vary little, from island to island, whereby the same plants often have different names.