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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Divine interventions

by

20130525

Bri­an­na Mc­Carthy's sec­ond so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion, Saints + Jumbies, opened on May 22 at Medul­la Art Gallery, Wood­brook. This self-taught mixed me­dia artist of­ten de­picts women in her work, ad­dress­ing is­sues of beau­ty, stereo­types and em­pow­er­ment es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of black bod­ies. Here, Mc­Carthy again puts a spot­light on the black fe­male, pre­sent­ing her as a di­vin­i­ty–as both a saint and a jumbie–with in­ter­ces­so­ry pow­er.

The con­junc­tion "and" in the ti­tle of her work com­pels us to make con­nec­tions be­tween Chris­tian­i­ty's saints and the spir­its that fall out­side of a Chris­t­ian be­lief sys­tem–spir­its which are pop­u­lar­ly re­gard­ed in Caribbean con­texts as jumbies.For Mc­Carthy, the word jumbie does not re­fer to an evil spir­it, but a de­ity that can in­ter­vene in hu­man life in ben­e­fi­cial ways. Both the saint and the jumbie are ob­jects of ven­er­a­tion and prayers and they can be called up­on to at­tend to every­day con­cerns.

Mc­Carthy says, "I had been con­sid­er­ing that saints and jumbies were at sep­a­rate ends of a lin­ear pro­gres­sion but I don't be­lieve that is so. To sep­a­rate them with a gra­di­ent be­tween sug­gests that they are dis­sim­i­lar and in op­po­si­tion when I feel as though they are re­al­ly in the same in­ti­mate space–on­ly re­quired or in­voked at dif­fer­ent times."The ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tures an ar­ray of saints and jumbies that the artist has felt the urge to sum­mon at one time or an­oth­er in her per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences. Some deities are born of her own imag­i­na­tion while oth­ers, like the saint pre­sent­ed in her piece The Re­birth of Kim­pa Vi­ta, come from an ac­tu­al nu­cle­us of di­vini­ties. Dona Beat­riz Kim­pa Vi­ta was a Con­golese woman who claimed to be pos­sessed by the Catholic spir­it of St An­tho­ny. She led the An­ton­ian move­ment, a re­li­gion that en­vi­sioned Catholi­cism in terms of black African his­to­ry and ge­og­ra­phy. In 1706 she was killed for her be­liefs, which were re­gard­ed as heresy by the church.

"The Re­birth of Kim­pa Vi­ta is ac­tu­al­ly the sec­ond of the saints I made. She is a piece I am very at­tached to–a piece I feel most as a self-por­trait, though not com­plete­ly. She is a calmer, stronger, wis­er ver­sion of my­self, yet so oth­er to me," says Mc­Carthy.With this new work, Mc­Carthy con­structs around her saints and jumbies a mythol­o­gy she calls the mak­er/mender. It is the idea that we are al­ways in a process of cre­at­ing, restor­ing, re­new­ing and heal­ing our­selves, and the saints and jumbies are the pow­ers we can draw up­on for mak­ing and mend­ing our­selves."It is the idea that we are con­stant­ly con­struct­ing and de­con­struct­ing our­selves, pulling el­e­ments from na­ture, shaman­ism, re­li­gious iconog­ra­phy and oth­er ar­eas of hu­man­i­ty to con­struct who we are, have been, are be­com­ing and would like to be. Through this sa­cred and se­lec­tive com­po­si­tion we are able to choose our own pow­er and our own elixirs, our own strengths."

Bri­an­na Mc­Carthy's Saints + Jumbies runs un­til June 13 at Medul­la Art Gallery, 37 Fitt Street, Wood­brook. In­fo: 740-7597 or e-mail: medul­laart­gallery@gmail.com


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