Inspired by traditional Malian ceblinké dancers. Ceblinké mask dancers from the Beledugu region are thousands of years old and are known to be connected to and protected by ancestral spirits. They are covered in traditional medicine and dressed in mud-cloth dipped in a boiled bark mixture from the Wollo, Ngalama, Npekou, Bouana, Nzorrow blen or Ntchangara trees in West Africa, which not only acts as a mordant to the cloth, but acts as protection while the dancers perform their acrobatics, as these specific trees are the homes of forest spirits and jinns that provide the protection.

Bouana | 40" x 40" | Collage, acrylic on board | 2019 | 🔴

Wollo | 40" x 30" | Collage, acrylic on board | 2019 | 🔴

Traditionally and still today, bogolan (mud cloth) is what hunters wear while in the forest or in nature, as they can travel far without fear with the protection the clothing carries.

Spices and Juju