Morphous

Morphous

Lionel Smit's MORPHOUS is an exploration of hybrid identity and its ever -changing nature within South Africa's social landscape. This particular piece evokes a question of time, of past and future, and the balance point at which his country found itself at the time of the sculpture's creation in 2014, one year after Nelson Mandela's passing. In 2014, South Africa embarked upon yet another chapter, a post-Apartheid and post-Nelson Mandela South Africa, a future South Africa. This "double vision" is a foretelling, and an acknowledgement of what has already passed and an anticipation of what is still to come. The figures are charged with an emotive and gestural energy, a hallmark of Smit's evocative work. Viewers familiar with Ancient Roman mythology and iconography will undoubtedly think of Janus, the double headed deity of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. The end of 2022, the time of the sculpture’s installation here in Providence, is also a time of transition broadly in The United States, and locally here in Rhode Island. It is a powerful message of representation to consider this reference to Janus when depicting a young Black woman.

Lionel Smit

Fabricated 2014; installed 2022

Sculpture; Bronze, Corten Steel Base

Kennedy Plaza

bronze sculpture:
76 ½ h x 131 ¾ l x 45 ½ d
; Corten steel base:
55 ¼ h & w x 139 ⅜ l

$244,850

American Rescue Plan (ARPA)

https://www.lionelsmit.com/

Small Frye Photography courtesy of The Avenue Concept

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