Onajide Shabaka | MOCA North | Art On The Plaza

Her Touch Smooths Rough Waters, 2022
Steel, fiberglass, plaster, paint, resin
Site-specific installation

Water is central to the new public artwork by Miami-based artist Onajide Shabaka for MOCA’s Art on the Plaza commission. Activating the two plinths in the fountain, a set of objects are in dialogue with one another. On one side, a large-scale sculpture traces the serpentine forms often found in Shabaka’s work. These patterns—a combination of straight and curved bands, zigzags, circles, and semicircles—originate from pivotal research by the artist in Suriname, a South American Amazon forested country. Shabaka developed an abstraction of natural forms derived from the intricate insect architecture and botanical root systems found there, and within coastal areas of Georgia and subtropical Florida. The shape becomes a multidirectional conversation of the natural environment’s impact in urban space and the relationship of humans within it.

Coupled with the large-scale sculpture on the adjacent plinth are two tear-drop shaped vessels, which continue the language of serpentine imagery. For Shabaka, the vessels evoke the ancient purpose of transporting water as both a necessity and as a ritual act.  Here the serpentine designs function as a kind of map for the flows of water: not as a straight line, but tracing the undulations of its movement, always finding its way despite obstacles. The large serpentine sculpture functions as a macro-view for this natural phenomenon, suggesting gravitational currents that link major water systems such as the Everglades National Park, which provides the drinking water for South Florida. In its component parts, the work articulates a language from nature, and an essential interconnectedness of the world as a whole.