Ellen Gallagher, Ecstatic Draught of Fishes, 2022

Narrator: Ecstatic Draught of Fishes, created in 2022, is a horizontal mixed media painting with oil, pigment, wax, palladium leaf and paper on canvas. The work measures about 7 and a half feet tall by just under 10 feet. Identical abstract sculptures of different sizes are seen from the side, suspended among waving lines like cords or strands and an organic green mass. All of these elements are raised from the canvas against a flat backdrop of earth-toned rectangles like an aerial map.  

The figures evoke West African sculptural traditions while also suggesting futuristic materials and technologies. The figures’ gray metallic color is like stone or light metal. The variation in their color softens their appearance. Each figure has two smooth crests of hair, wide open orbits where eyes would be, and a gently sloping profile without strongly defined facial features. An ear or earring descends from the hairline, resting on the back edge of the cylindrical neck. Breasts jut forward over bent armlike shapes that bend together where hands would clasp. The figures are all shown in the same orientation, facing left, and cut off at the waist. Most are tethered to clay colored cords that waft across the topography of the work toward the right edge.

Horizontal multi-colored strands dance on the left border of the painting suggesting the movement of a current in water or wind. From top to bottom the strands cross from the off-white left edge of the painting over the wavering border of a dark brown column. Here they meet the edge of the rectangles which form the majority of the background. While many of the strands stop abruptly at this point, some trade their brighter colors for muted hues to permeate the background a quarter of the way down and meet the green mass that crosses the middle of the work horizontally.

This multicolored organic cluster of green resembles both small-scale organisms such as moss and lichens or a large ecosystem such as a swamp or canopy system. Gallagher’s work uses these oceanographic forms to highlight the significance of water in the slave trade, and to interrogate relationships between slavery, colonialism, and belief systems. This work is displayed on a red supportive structure towards the left side of the gallery, along other works in the Black Migration section of the exhibit.