The Meaning of
the Sculpture Program in
Our Mother of Africa Chapel
-3-
The Sculptural
Elements
The sculpture program
is the work of different artists and designers who combine romantic,
classical, realist, and geometric forms to celebrate the sacred
conversation in Our Mother of Africa Chapel.
Sculptor Ed Dwight
created the statue of Our Mother of Africa and Divine Son and the
narrative relief on the wall of the nave, which celebrates the African
American experience. The artist renders Mary and the Infant Jesus with
idealized African American features.
In Dwight’s relief
(above), which reads from right to left toward the altar and the crucifix, the
figures at the beginning of the narrative are rendered in low relief,
which makes them seem to merge from the bronze background. As the
journey toward emancipation progresses, the relief becomes higher, the
figures more three dimensional, and the space they occupy more
realistic, which not only animates the narrative but also intimately
involves the spectator in the African American journey — a tableau of
frozen movement.
That sense of living
sculpture is heightened by the way the sculptor models and composes his
figures, which has its roots in the rich figurative tradition of both
African and Western Art. Dwight’s deeply modeled surfaces and his range
of movement —compassionate, violent, and varied — demonstrates his power
of gesture. Ed Dwight forged a style and vision distinctly his own,
which virtually transpires through every twist and turn of his figures
and composition to give this odyssey of the African American experience
its unique and timeless character.
Our Mother of Africa Chapel
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