Out on a limb …
Brutal history is refashioned as ethereal fantasy in Ellen Gallagher’s painting Bird in Hand from 2006. The rum fellow at its centre combines Moby-Dick’s Captain Ahab, tap-dancing star Peg Leg Bates and the untold stories of those thrown overboard on slave ships from Cape Verde, where the artist’s paternal family hail from.
Under the sea …
Gallagher evolves these varied allusions into new possibilities: a one-eyed pirate from Drexciya, a black Atlantis invented by the Detroit house act of the same name and a recurring reference for her.
The new mutants …
She has described him as a Dr Moreau: his leg sprouts tentacles, his afro is a shoal of fish. Up close, though, he is the product of sedimented layers of cultural history. The materials include torn paper, maps and old, often racially suppressive ads for black beauty products.
Old salts …
Himalayan rock salt and gold leaf suggest sunken treasure and the geology of an underwater utopia. The references dance before us like marine life: floating, fluid and refusing to settle.
Artist Rooms: Ellen Gallagher, Tate Modern, SE1, to 17 November
