B omma

Isabella by Marcus Brutus is a sculpture about exile, about displacement, its title echoing Sojourner Truth, a slave woman and mystic who traveled to give speeches about the evils of slavery in the 1830s. She was a member of an itinerant group of spiritual visionaries and radical preachers on a route called the “Psychic Highway”. Isabella is inspired by a wooden sculpture from Burkina Faso, she is now wearing a shawl over her shoulders and long sleeves. Her hands are gloved, she wears a long dress and a pair of flip-flops. Her hands clasped and clutching the suitcase, which the artist wanted to be detachable. What could be more interesting for a static sculpture than to possibly be in motion? Isabella seems to be waiting, passive, leaving us in doubt about our final reading: is she coming, is she going, is she waiting? The work updates the question of transition and migratory exile.