M. Florine Démosthène presents a new body of work that continues her exploration of enigmatic human forms in collage and experimental sculpture.
M. Florine Démosthène, The Struggle Makes You Beautiful, 2023. Acrylic on Mylar, 50 x 38 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Démosthène’s practice centers the Black female body in abstractions that engage themes of human transformation and collective experience. Rendered in translucent applications of paint, ink, and glitter on Mylar, the artist’s silhouetted figures are cut and assembled into amalgamations of bodies on voids of white. The resulting forms — swirling, celestial beings that transcend immediate readings of identity — encourage otherworldly readings of Démosthène’s oeuvre. Demonstrating recent spiritual influences on the artist’s sculptural work following a period of living and working in Ghana, the works on view reference shrines of the Fon people of Benin and Ewe people of Ghana, merging aesthetic cultural traditions with cutting-edge 3D printing technology.
‘Mastering the Dream’ is organised by SCAD Museum of Art curator Ben Tollefson.
M. Florine Démosthène (b. 1971, New York) was born in the U.S. and raised between Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and New York. She earned her B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design in New York and her M.F.A. from Hunter College, City University of New York. Démosthène’s work has been exhibited extensively in solo and group shows in the U.S., the Caribbean, the U.K., Europe, and Africa, with recent solo shows including In the Realm of Love at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Paris; The Armory Show, New York, with Mariane Ibrahim Gallery; and The Stories I Tell Myself at Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana. She is the recipient of a Wachtmeister Award, a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, an Art Moves Africa Grant, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. She has participated in residencies in the U.S., the Caribbean, the U.K., Slovakia, Ghana, and Tanzania. Démosthène’s work is held in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Africa First, University of South Africa (UNISA), Lowe Art Museum, Hessel Museum of Art, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and various private collections worldwide.
The exhibition is on view from the 16th of August, 2023, until the 8th of January, 2024. For more information, please visit the SCAD Museum of Art.
