Levitate

Radcliffe Bailey creates sculptures, paintings, installations, and assemblages that investigate the culture of the African Diaspora, balancing world history with familial memory. Boats and ships are common motifs in his work, referencing ocean crossings and the Middle Passage in the Atlantic slave trade. In "Levitate," the reference is less historically precise and more spiritually evocative.

The long vessel seen here is based on a fishing boat the artist first encountered when visiting Senegal. The object appears to float in front of the tarp, similar to the way a magician makes an assistant levitate. The black glitter covering the boat recurs in Bailey’s works and suggests the shimmering quality of Haitian Voodoo flags, which are covered in reflective sequins. The background tarp is marked with symbols derived from visual languages as diverse as Haitian veve, Yoruba and Kongo cosmology, and African American Carolina metalwork. These markings form a mystical navigational language of the artist’s creation, and the boat becomes a transcendent vessel carrying viewers to another realm.