Mahber Shaw’ate (Association of 7)
Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NYC, NY, 2011
Mahber Shawʼate (Association of Seven) is a suite of photographs, cardboard box sculptures and wall murals. While the arrangements of the boxes reference minimal and early conceptual art, the boxes themselves, despite their emptiness, carry connotations of travel and migration. The project takes language as a model, specifically the Tigrinya alphabet, as used in my birthplace of Eritrea. The letters of the Tigrinya alphabet are transformed by their context; consonant letterforms are modified depending on neighboring vowels. The photographs build on this notion of contingent structure, and in so doing manifest structurally what is generally true of linguistic meaning: that it is always contingent on its context, a truth which is demonstrated by the larger structure of the project.
Mahber Shaw’ate (Association of 7)
Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NYC, NY, 2011
Mahber Shaw’ate (Association of 7)
Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NYC, NY, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 4, Nazareth, Ethiopia
Archival colour pigment print, 30 x 36”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 3, Marfa, TX
Archival colour pigment print, 30 x 36”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 1, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print, 30 x 36”, 2011
Triple Cube Formation, No. 2, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print,, 20 x 24”, 2011
Triple Cube Formation, No. 1, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print,, 20 x 24”, 2011
Septuple Cube Formation, No. 1, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 3, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 2, Santa Barbara, CA
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Double Cube Formation, No. 1, Saskatoon, SK
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 5, Saskatoon, SK
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 6, Saskatoon, SK
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Quadruple Cube Formation, No. 1, Saskatoon, SK
Archival colour pigment print, 30 x 36”, 2011
Single Cube Formation, No. 6, Saskatoon, SK
Archival colour pigment print, 20 x 24”, 2011
Single, Double, Triple Cube Formations, Harlem, NY
Archival colour pigment print, 16 x 100”, 2009