To Make Evident the Scar

Across Zohra Opoku’s practice, one might consider an underlying question: How do we hold it all together when things are fragmented or have fallen to pieces? Opoku answers this by making evident her sutures. Her new series titled The Myths of Eternal Life Part I continues to ponder this inquiry, as she brings together two years of works that she created in the wake of her cancer diagnosis to stitch together a story of devastation and rejuvenation.

For her canvas, Opoku uses linen sourced from storage sacks found in her mother’s attic, as well linen sourced in Senegal during her time at the Black Rock Senegal residency. In some of the works, such as in ‘To me belongs mankind, given wholly to me. I have entered as a falcon. I have gone forth. Morning star, make a path for me so that I may enter in peace into the beautiful West. I belong to the pool of Horus. Act for me so that I may enter and I may adore Osiris, Lord of Life’ (2021), in which she has dyed the linens with indigo. Combining these materials, Opoku culls images from her own bodily and meditative archive made up of before and after images of her body as she underwent radiation and countless photographs of trees taken in a wintry Berlin park during the same period. The latter became a particular preoccupation for Opoku, as she contemplated how the trees, then emptied of their leaves, would soon blossom and produce new life in the forthcoming seasons. At the encouragement of Mariane Ibrahim to return to her practice after a hiatus catalyzed by her diagnosis, Opoku centered the trees as a protagonist in this series, where they appear screen printed as backgrounds in some works or in sculptural form in others.

Opoku divides her new series across four chapters titled Chapter I: Healing Hands and Hieroglyphs, Chapter II: About Dying, Chapter III: Between Light and Darkness, Chapter IV: The Book Of The Dead. Her turn to death and dying is informed by facing her own mortality, as well as the Book of the Dead, an ancient Egyptian mortuary text, which includes spells to prepare one for the afterlife. Opoku uses chapters from the book as titles for her works and also incorporates Egyptian hieroglyphs, which appear most prominently in Chapter IV. The word hieroglyph translates in Greek to “sacred carving” and Opoku approaches the works with a particular reverence to not only ancient traditions, but also her own grief and healing. In one work titled Horus is the one who rescues (2021), Opoku collages images of trees and her arms, as well as stitching to create the Eye of Horus, an Egyptian symbol that represents healing, protection and restoration. In other works, these symbols are stitched in their traditional form or referenced via Opoku’s own body parts, such as isolated images of her legs and hands, which carry their own symbolism. In ‘I am made strong, I rejuvenate myself. I am raised higher than those who are in the sunshine, the akhs who came into being with him. I appear in the glory as a divine falcon’ (2020), a hand juggles dismantled pieces of her body like her nose, eyes, ears and face. Opoku tells me that such images in the works represent the many checkups she had during treatment and the countless hands of doctors and nurses that touched her. When color appears in works such as in ‘I am Great of Magic, with the knife that came forth from Seth. My feet belong to me forever. I am present in glory’ (2020), which includes a palette of red, blue and green, Opoku says she is thinking about rejuvenation, the possibility that comes after weathering. Working with the Egyptian language system allows her to create a visual lexicon of her own that aids in her making sense of her experience while reclaiming her power.

The series is grounded in mortality not as a devastating end, but as a life cycle that has its particular beauties. “This is my favorite work to date. A lot of friends say this is my strongest work because [they say] ‘You really take your insides out. You’re not afraid to show how scared you were’ … It really gave me a new confidence that everything is going to be fine.” 

By Rikki Byrd