In order to heal, you must cleanse yourself, 2023
Current
Loans
Print on PVC,
8 x 2,70 m
In order to heal, you must cleanse yourself is a photographic trilogy by Courtney Desiree Morris, commissioned specifically for the C3A façade. In each vignette, the artist assumes an aesthetically refined pose, that honorifically embodies a manifestation of the orisha, or deity, from the Yoruba pantheon or symbolizes an act of worship and care. Morris’s body serves as the vessel and vector of her ancestors, their powers and knowledge, and expresses the affective economy and spiritual exchange between landscapes, human subjectivity, and divine beings.
In Prayer to Mayalewo on the left side, Morris portrays herself in a slightly bent posture holding two white plates in balance. The offering of the plates with both hands suggests submission and service to the higher authority of the divine. Her long blue skirt, steeped in mystic coolness and the calm, inward gazing gentleness of her facial expression emphasize the noble act of giving.
Holding a mirror in front of her face, in Mirror she embodies the gift of reflection, the protective power granted to water surfaces and associated with Oshun. Dressed in immaculate white clothing, the symbolic color of good character and purity, and wearing a blue sash, she is seated on a sandy beach behind a rocky landscape while tightly cradling a porcelain doll in her arms.
In the right Abalone image, Morris covers her face with a porous white abalone shell and gazes straight through a large cavity, expressing a spiritual alignment between herself, the natural force, and a divine power. Seeing through the shell mask may be likened to vision of the inner eye, where the radiance of the eye reflects the brightness of the inner spirit.
CURRENT LOANS
Group show: Remedios
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
Exhibition 14 April 2023 - March 2024
Born in Fort Ord, California, US, in 1983. Lives in Berkeley, California, US.
8 x 2,70 m
In order to heal, you must cleanse yourself is a photographic trilogy by Courtney Desiree Morris, commissioned specifically for the C3A façade. In each vignette, the artist assumes an aesthetically refined pose, that honorifically embodies a manifestation of the orisha, or deity, from the Yoruba pantheon or symbolizes an act of worship and care. Morris’s body serves as the vessel and vector of her ancestors, their powers and knowledge, and expresses the affective economy and spiritual exchange between landscapes, human subjectivity, and divine beings.
In Prayer to Mayalewo on the left side, Morris portrays herself in a slightly bent posture holding two white plates in balance. The offering of the plates with both hands suggests submission and service to the higher authority of the divine. Her long blue skirt, steeped in mystic coolness and the calm, inward gazing gentleness of her facial expression emphasize the noble act of giving.
Holding a mirror in front of her face, in Mirror she embodies the gift of reflection, the protective power granted to water surfaces and associated with Oshun. Dressed in immaculate white clothing, the symbolic color of good character and purity, and wearing a blue sash, she is seated on a sandy beach behind a rocky landscape while tightly cradling a porcelain doll in her arms.
In the right Abalone image, Morris covers her face with a porous white abalone shell and gazes straight through a large cavity, expressing a spiritual alignment between herself, the natural force, and a divine power. Seeing through the shell mask may be likened to vision of the inner eye, where the radiance of the eye reflects the brightness of the inner spirit.
CURRENT LOANS
Group show: Remedios
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
Exhibition 14 April 2023 - March 2024
Born in Fort Ord, California, US, in 1983. Lives in Berkeley, California, US.