Majak Bredell's Alter Images II

The UJ Art Gallery will present an art exhibition with new works by Majak Bredell, entitled ALTER IMAGES II. 

Living in New York between 1981 and 2004, Bredell longed for Africa, imaging the continent as a great dark mother.  She says that her latest work is informed by this African mother, along with her sisters, the Black Madonnas of Europe, with their deep European and ancient Middle Eastern roots.  

Bredell states: "As a lapsed Calvinist and dissident daughter of the patriarchy I am in constant dialogue with the nagging question of how our interior landscape would be different if the prevailing religious icon was a woman giving birth rather than a man dying on a cross. To this end I create ideas and images that re-connect the body to spirit and woman to goddess. My work is not about replacing a male-centered religion with a female-centered one; rather, it grew out of the scars left on my spirit by a tradition that reveres god to the detriment of goddess and exalts the mind/spirit at the expense of the body. I apply the overarching title of Post-Christian Alter Images - deliberately and simultaneously marking the notion of other alternatives (alter) and a site of worship (altar) - to the continuum of my work".