My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 134

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Religious Melancholia, 2012
(from Hysteria part of show)
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
63 x 32 inches
l
Suicidal Melancholia, 2012,
(from Hysteria part of show)
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
48 x 32 inches

In summary, the installation will
display paintings, wallpaper, dioramas
and academic papers, to illustrate the
different expressions of female madness
in 19th Century Gothic literature.

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The portraits are painted in a 19th
Century colonial style on gesso-covered
patterned fabric, and are collaged with
circular, color photographs of staged,
miniature, bizarre scenes. These photos
illustrate the women’s altered realities,
hallucinations and visions. The miniature
dioramas are encased in glass and
depict the various insane imaginings
of the female characters. Portraits
of the mad women also appear inside
hollowed-out, aged books, referencing
literature and creating an athenaeum-like
ambiance. The original, macabre wall
paper in the installation references the
novella, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where
the heroine’s descent into madness is
manifested by the hallucinations that
she sees in her room’s wallpaper. To add
to the “study” atmosphere, there will
be a display of academic papers written
by Jennifer Doyle (professor of 19th
Century Literature at UC Riverside),
Tavia Nyong’o (19th Century scholar
and professor at nyu) and Sola
Agustsson (Gender & Women’s Studies,
UC Berkeley).

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

p
The Yellow Wallpaper, nameless heroine, 2012
(written by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman)
Acrylic and digital photographs on fabric on board
40 x 30 inches