Neg' Brown

2010
28 x 30 x 1 cm (with metal base: 28 x 60 x 19 cm) | 5kg
Multi-layer fused glass with inclusion of pigments, enamelling

The term “maroon” comes from the Spanish cimarron, “living on the peaks”.
It is a word undoubtedly borrowed from the Arawaks, the Amerindians of the West Indies. It refers to domestic animals that return to the wild like the pig.
From the 16th century, it was used for fugitive slaves. In the French West Indies, as in all West Indian slave societies, slaves never accepted their condition and always fought, by all means, against their oppressors. The forms of resistance were very diverse: theft, sabotage, irony... Some even demonstrated as much cruelty and barbarity towards the masters as the colonists towards the slaves.
But here, no aggression, no violence. Yet the glass imposes itself, dense, intense, deep. Indeed, the subtle play between the absolute opacity of the matte brown and the cuts of a frank red, as well as the contrast between the sharp edges of the contours of the work and the rounded prominences of the facial features, create a fault, prompt one to question:
to be evil or victim?