Africana Andromeda: Contemporary Painting and the Classical Black Figure
- Submitting institution
-
University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 514
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
-
10.1093/oso/9780198814122.003.0007
- Book title
- Classicisms in the Black Atlantic
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- ISBN
- 9780198814122
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- January
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Tate’s national collection of British art includes work about the Greek myth of Andromeda who, according to the Roman poet Ovid, was an Ethiopian princess rescued from death by Perseus. This chapter explores this racialised, gendered narrative and Andromeda’s suppressed African heritage through writing, reading, digital design, painting, photography and drawing. How do British, Classical and Black identities interact through art and how are such processes mediated through a complex history characterised by colonialism and slavery, as well as by independence, struggle and settlement? Informed by the disruptive spirit of Frantz Fanon, the author’s studio practice responds to Tate artworks, like Henry Fehr’s monumental sculpture, as well as to whiteness in Burne-Jones’ and Turner’s paintings. The author’s own artwork, Rescue of Andromeda, is proposed as demonstrative of how critical reading and studio methodologies can facilitate new art celebrating ascendant black womanhood, whilst contributing to debates about artistic tradition and popular culture.
This chapter derives from research first presented by Donkor at the symposium ‘The Black Subject: Ancient to Modern’, which was held at Tate Britain in 2015. The book brings together scholars of classics, classical reception studies as well as cultural and intellectual historians of Africa and African diasporas to discuss transnational dialogues and debates on classical traditions (both traditional European classics and traditions founded on African antiquity). Donkor’s research was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship with the TrAIN research institute.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -