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“The Sale of Venus Underneath the Ceiba Tree”
Oil on Canvas, 96”x72,” © 2011 Lili Bernard
Available for purchase
"Lili Bernard manifests the Orishas in an epic painting approach that combines historical ecstasy with spiritual expressionism pulsating in a lush painterly approach." Mat Gleason, Coagula Art Journal
This is the first work in a new series of large oil paintings in which I take classical European paintings, created during the slave-trade era, and flip them to tell African slave stories. The purpose is to create a visual archive on canvas of the inhumanity which the slaves resiliently endured during that seemingly beautiful era, when such stories were not preserved on canvas. The scenes I'm painting take place in Cuba, where I was born, as homage to my ancestors there, but such scenes occurred wherever the conquerors set foot.
I made this particular painting after Botticelli’s 15th century painting, "The Birth of Venus," for a group exhibition called TEL-ART-PHONE at the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood, CA. The curator was art critic, Mat Gleason, founder and editor of Coagula Art Journal (http://coagula.com/).
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As is typical in this new series; I made this painting rich with symbolism of Afro-Cuban folklore and religion. I replaced Botticelli’s Roman gods and goddesses with images of the Orishas and Saints, including La Virgen de La Caridad del Cobre 9 (the Blessed Mother Mary known as Ochun in Santeria), the Baby Jesus, San Lazaro (known as Babalu Ayé in Santeria), Chango and his counterpart Santa Barbara, and Yemayá as a mermaid (the Orisha who accompanied the slaves across the middle passage), also known as La Virgen de Regla in Santeria.
HOW THE TEL-ART-PHONE EXHIBIT INSPIRED THIS PAINTING:
The TEL-ART-PHONE exhibit mimicked the old game of “Telephone.” TEL-ART-PHONE chains started with Mat Gleason, the curator, giving an image to the first artist to “reproduce” it in his or her own interpretation. Mat then took this original reproduction to another artist. He then took whatever this person produced on to the next artist.
The artist before me in the chain, is known as Coop. His work, which I received from Mat Gleason, was a simple and lovely line drawing of a voluptuos White woman, scantily dressed, posing provocatively, in a sort of "S" pose, like a sex-Goddess. It reminded me of Venus, the goddess of love, in all of those beautiful paintings made by White European artists centuries ago.
I instantly thought of Boticelli's painting (which is my favorite of the European Venus paintings) and took it all back to the ancestral. I thought, what would Boticelli's painting look like if the subject (Venus) were a Black woman in Cuba (where I was born), some time before my grandfather (an Afro-Indigenous Cuban) was born in Cuba in 1868, which was almost 20 years before slavery ended in Cuba?
For images of the details in this painting, please visit my FaceBook Artwork 2011 photo album, by clicking here.
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