Stinging Vine (Shihitima thothope)
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
Venezuelan and Yanomami, born 1971
2020
Acrylic on colored paper in which the artist translates the Yanomami 'stinging vine' into a spare, rhythmic arrangement of red vertical strands punctuated by small black marks that suggest stings or thorns.
What strikes you is the measured choreography of thin, slightly wavering red lines falling from a flat brown band across the top, their regular rhythm broken by a central V-shaped gap and scattered black starbursts and dots that read like sparks or barbs against the muted paper.
By rendering a specific Amazonian plant in pared-down, almost diagrammatic terms, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe brings Indigenous botanical knowledge and cosmology into contemporary drawing, asserting Amazonian presence within a global art discourse.
Medium
Acrylic on colored paper
Dimensions
sheet: 19 7/8 × 26 3/4" (50.5 × 68 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Adriana Cisneros de Griffin in honor of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund
Accession
417.2022
Palette
Exhibitions
