25.9 x 21.6 cm
From 21st February Fotografiska Tallinn exhibits the works of British-Liberian conceptal artist Lina Iris Viktor. Her art combines photography, painting, performance and sculpture with ancient gilding techniques. Photos in exhibition Dark Testament are intricate, densely layered surfaces with a restricted colour palette, characterised by the use of 24-karat gold leaf.
Lina Iris Viktor's extraordinary black and gold works are infused with complex histories of the African diaspora. The artist explores the cultural, historical and material implications and multifaceted nations of 'blackness': as colour, value and socio-political consciousness. For her, black is conjured as a deeply generative force: the proverbial materia prima, the source, the dark matter that birthed everything. Gold is both symbol and substance, a spiritual conduit of transcendence.