Erzulie Fitzgerald
Tuesday 9 June 2009 - Comments / Commentaires (0)
More than any other paintings from Apple Pie, Erzulie Fitzgerald embodies the cultural mash-up that is the new world. My portrait of a Haitian-American woman as Ella Fitzgerald with references to the Voodoo goddess Erzulie Freda also made me use a medium I never dreamed I’d use!
Ella Fitzgerald
When I met Judith, the subject of Erzulie Fitzgerald, she made it clear to me just how important singing and music were to her. Quickly enough, we decided that Ella Fitzgerald would be a good icon fit for her.
Virgin Mary
Still, that left the problem of how to emphasize Judith’s Haitian origins in the painting. So I did a lot of research into the arts of this complex culture and I came across the practice of combining the iconography of Catholic saints with the various Voodoo gods. Originally, this allowed the first Haitians—slaves brought over from Africa—to worship their gods without fear of reprimand from their owners.
Yves Telemak's Erzulie Freda
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