WASHERWOMAN

2018

Mixed media installation (Beeswax, resin, brown cotton, wire & found objects)

3.5ft H x 4.5ft L

 

Shown at solo exhibition 'IMPRINT' (2019),

Loftt Gallery, Port of Spain 

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Inspired by a JW Cleary photograph taken in Jamaica in 1890, this installation was intended to pay homage to the labour of our ancestors as Caribbean peoples and in particular the female contribution to the fabric of our heritage. Though she continues to wash, she can never truly cleanse the material of its imprint. 

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The artist made Washerwoman in her grandmother’s house in Trinidad and she is thus imbued as much with the intimacy of a matriarchal dialogue, as with archives unknown. Alonzo describes her experience of making the sculpture:

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“Somehow, through the process of making, Washerwoman became an old friend. I sat with her, placing clothes pins and sculpting the wax. I meditated on her story, although unwritten in the pages of any book, and hoped that it could be revealed through the rhythm of my hands, working alongside hers. I imagine garments as their own form of time capsule: literally absorbing our blood, sweat and tears. Absorbing our essence. Though she washes perpetually, she cannot remove the remnants of the past, whether seen or unseen.”