The Era of the Tongue and Lung is inspired by Zora Neale Hurston's 1938 essay, “Art and Such.” Moor’s use of the text is enhanced by repetition and the multiple layering of colors. installed in a grid or quilt-like manner, the pattern, rhythm, and color transform a little-known Hurston excerpt into a contemporary image rich in connotation. In her essay, Hurston used the phrase in reference to the era of Frederick Douglass, “a period of sound and emotion,” of great orators and “Race Champions”. Repositioned in the present day through Moor’s installation, the phrase readily acquires rhetorical and physical meaning.
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records
Painter, printmaker, and performance-artist Ayanah Moor was born in Norfolk, VA. She received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and an MFA from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Moor's work can be found in the c...