Hidden Ancestry

This last week I took a trip to the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill. The museum is located right on UNC-CH’s campus and offers a wide range of art that would be satisfying for the art novice or an educated connoisseur. Ackland was a great escape from the rain, and free of charge! While wondering around the museum clueless, as I am not very familiar with art in the least, Moyo Okediji’s “The Dutchman” (1995) stood out among all the other paintings. Of course, this was after the security guard told me that I was allowed only to take notes with a pencil, and he took away my pen as if a pencil cannot do equal damage to priceless masterpieces. Okediji was born into the Yoruba culture of Nigeria in 1956. After coming to America, he realized how tortured his ancestors and equals were as a cause of African slavery. It was this realization and Robert Hayden’s poem entitled “Middle Passage” that served as inspiration for the painting. The actual meaning of the painting is not decipherable at first sight and requires further scrutiny, which suggests that perception may be based on what we know to be true or historical context.

I approached the painting because of its absolutely wonderful eye-catching color and enormous size. At first glance, since the color was so bright (cheery and filled with vibrant reds, oranges, yellow, and even some pastels), I assumed the painting would render a happy scene or situation. As I got a closer look at the painting I became very much confused because of the many sharp lines, angles and shapes depicted in “The Dutchman.” It was not long before my confusion overcame me and led me to read the information placard about Okediji’s painting to further understand exactly what was going on in this jumbled mess. The bright colors and pastels are deceptive in nature, because after reading the placard I discovered the painting is a depiction of the Dutch controlled African slave trade across the Middle Passage. This information completely changed the way I perceived the painting. The Middle Passage was the longest part of the slave journey on tightly packed, disease infested ships, which stretched from the west coast of Africa to the Americas where the slaves were sold. Therefore, it is evident the color was engineered so that the viewer’s attention is attracted to the painting at first glance, and the tragic details of the painting are only to be discovered with further scrutiny.

Now, knowing the painting was a depiction of the Dutch enslaving Africans for sale in the Americas, my perception of the meaning and message was completely skewed. The only words on the painting label the ship “Dutch Ship” as to be clear the traders are indeed Dutch. The colors are bright, not because the subject matter is happy, but rather to make the event stick out and be noticeable. The deep blues have high significance in the painting because they represent mainly the Atlantic Ocean, the darkness of the mood, and according to Ackland the mournful, sad African-American blues music of Okediji’s era. Color is not the only technique that Okediji employs to get his message across. There are many other aspects of the painting such as the jagged, abstract lines and angles used to outline the figures that may demonstrate the anguish and hardship associated with the horrid journey in a cramped space across the Atlantic. The disorganization of the painting symbolizes the chaos, confusion and fear the slaves onboard were feeling. Fear is perceived in the women turning away from the Dutch traders and crying which may be a cause of sexual abuse or other mistreatment. Three slaves without shackles were thrown into the abyss of the deep Atlantic with swarming sharks and other large fish.

Okediji’s “The Dutchman” greatly represents an art form that plays with ideas of perception. The pain is to be perceived by the viewer because the pain has to be witnessed not through color, but through other actions and hints hidden in the painting. The painting can mean different things to everyone as a cause of the confusing lines, shapes, patterns and colors employed. In fact, I witnessed the people in the painting are more visible if looked at from the left side, but from the right side, the people appear to be only random figures that are difficult to make out. In my eyes, Okediji designed this painting so people are lured into the sadness of the painting by the lively colors and his abstract artistic ability that make the scene ever more chaotic and disorganized, as it may have been experienced through the eyes of his ancestors who were victims of such treatment.