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Mumbo Jumbo #5 - Figurative Painting with Red, Pink, and Green Colors

Creator: Francks Deceus
Offered by: Arco Gallery

Description
Francks Deceus’ Mumbo Jumbo #5 is part of the Mumbo Jumbo series the artist has been working on since 2019.
The artist writes “As a Haitian immigrant while growing up in Brooklyn during the 1980s, it was difficult to maintain social and cultural ties to more than one place at a time. This created a constant struggle with identity and acceptance. Despite my Haitian nationality, I am too often confronted by, and subjugated to, harsh scrutiny solely based on color, while polarizing my image and marginalizing its complex inner value. My current body of work revisits this struggle, with an eye toward revealing my life-long dialog about nationality, as it relates to blackness and the contemporary demands of a modern era.
In one series of works, a hooded male figure is smiling while wrapped in a fire hose and is being propelled in random directions. The imagery in this set of works is both deliberately dispossessing and amusingly playful almost in equal measures, hence the title “Mumbo Jumbo.” The similarly titled novel by author Ishmael Reed inspires the series, “Mumbo Jumbo.” In the novel, as in this collection of works, Mr. Reed attempts to capture the complexities of the African American identity and how it is affronted and thrown askew by external pressures. Yet in an act of quite defiance, the protagonist’s smile is an immediate reminder to the viewer of his humanity, and inner self.
Also embedded in the work is a faded tribute to the African diasporic influence on Haitian culture. The symbols represented in the work are often used in voodoo ceremonies, derived from venerable cultural links to the African continent. This additive or duality is designed to redirect the viewer’s attention towards cultural markers in regards to identity and blackness, as opposed to racial precepts.
Although hefty in terms of subject matter and pervasive in its relevance to our everyday lives, my goal in this work and the themes it seeks to explore, is to create a platform for meaningful discourse in hopes of fostering a state of collectivity and consciousness.”

Francks F. Deceus was born in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. He moved to NYC when he was nine years old. He currently resides and maintains a studio in Brooklyn, NY. He received a B.A. in sociology from the Long Island University, NY, in 1992. He has studied printmaking at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. In February 2008 he was the recipient, of the Samella Lewis Award.

Group exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum, NY; Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts (MOCADA), Brooklyn, NY; The National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN; Gallery M, New York, NY; and Hampton University, Hampton, VA.

His work is in private and public collections, including Xavier University, New Orleans, LA; Schomburg Center, New York Public Library, NY; Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site House museum, Yonkers; New York, and International African American Museum, Charleston, SC;
His work has been featured in publications such as The International Revue of African-American Art and The Village Voice, as well as being included in " 100 New York Painters ", by Cynthia Maris Dantzic.

More Information

Documentation:	Signed
Period:	New
Materials:	canvas,Mixed Media,Acrylic
Condition:	New.
Creation Date:	2020
Styles / Movements:	Contemporary
Incollect Reference #:	752107

Dimensions

W.	48 in;	H.	60 in;	D.	1.5 in;
W.	121.92 cm;	H.	152.4 cm;	D.	3.81 cm;

Message from Seller:

Arco Gallery, founded in 2013 by Valentina Puccioni, offers a truly personalized art experience in the heart of SoHo, NYC. Located in a historic loft and open by appointment only, the gallery provides exclusive, intimate viewings, away from the mainstream gallery scene. P: 212.226.1207 E: valentina@arcogallery.com