Vickie Frémont

GREEN AFRICA:

New Works by Vickie Frémont

NEW YORK, June 5, 2009—Finely crafted works by the African visual artist Vickie Frémont are on view in RE…Re-Cycle, Re-Create, Re-Imagine, from June 18 to September 27, 2009, at The Museum of Biblical Art.

 

Celebrating the legacy of Africa, the exhibition coincides with two significant commemorations – the fifty-year anniversary of the wave of independence that transformed modern Africa and the fifteen-year anniversary of the end of Apartheid in South Africa.  Born in Cameroon and influenced by the art of Africa, Frémont employs the recycling process to reveal Africa’s rich spiritual and cultural heritage.  Creating art objects from recycled materials is a long-established, vibrant practice in Africa, where used articles, both natural and man-made, are traditionally fashioned into creations of new beauty and value.  Cans are made into striking art works; plastic bags are woven into intricate, multi-colored jewelry; dried fruits and vegetables are carved into musical instruments. Drawing inspiration from such forms of conservation and transformation, Frémont repurposes a variety of second-hand articles to construct inventive, charismatic figures of birds and people.  The exhibition explores African spiritual traditions that revere the earth and parallel discussions in Western theological thought.  At the heart of Frémont’s work is a powerful, personal vision of Africa, not as the impoverished, war-torn continent of news headlines, but as a wellspring of inspiration, imagination and vitality.