LOXOLOP EGUNGUN!

Pam McClusky, curator of African Art at the Seattle Art Museum, connected me with Ebere Groenouwe, a young Nigerian artist living in Amsterdam. Here is her work on her site, LOXOLOP EGUNGUN. Another black paper fan!

Be patient while the images load; it takes a while. While they are turning, you can grab them with your cursor and look at specific views.

Once you look through the moving images on the site, painstakingly photographed frame-by-frame (not a video or Flash), reflect on the fact that they are Miniscule.

Ebere's newest blog is LOXO-DROME, featuring the remarkable, hypnotic repetitive features of masks of the world, pulling at our yearning for bilateral symmetry. Her other blog is LOXOLOP FACADE.


LOXOLOP STATEMENT:

The loxolop arose from the study of origami but gradually developed into a unique construction method. The biomorphic and geometric basic shapes, used for making the complex 3D objects, almost spontanously present endless possibilities. Exploring these possibilties resulted in LOXOLOP EGUNGUN masks.

In many cultures masks are believed to not hide a person, but reveal a different persona or entity.
Egungun masks (from the Yoruba of Nigeria) are used to invoke the collective spirit of the ancestors.

Masks are important tools in many rites and rituals to transport both wearer and viewer from ordinairy reality into a realm of symbolism and mythology.

LOXOLOP EGUNGUN are an attempt to design a modern type of masks, influenced by ancient examples, with its own distictive characteristics.

(This website is not meant as a catalogue, representing something taking place in a gallery or exhibition space.These works are exclusively presented online. New works will be freshly uploaded regularly.)