Janine Antoni

I conjure up, 2019

Mixed media gilded with 24 karat gold leaf

14 1/8 x 16 1/4 x  1 1/8 inches (35.88 x 41.28 x 2.86 cm)

Commissioned by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.

© Janine Antoni; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
Photo: Christopher Burke

While swimming together, Antoni painted her mother's palms gold. Rubbing them together, her mother became transfixed by the gold rising to the water's surface. Seeing the stirring of water, body and clouds, Antoni captured the chaos. Responding to the troubled waters, she drags the bones of the hands, memorializing the whirl of elements into the solidity of bone and clay.

“I am of the water. The water is in me. I stir the water. The water stirs me. We dissolve in a storm.”

“I conjure up” was a part of “I am fertile ground” at Green-Wood Cemetery.