Baltimore Museum of Art Announces New Acquisitions

Born in Port-au-Prince in 1968, Myrlande Constant emerged in the early 2000s as one of the first women makers of devotional Haitian drapo Vodou (Vodou flags). Her contemporary interpretations of these beaded and sequined artworks are often larger and more ornate than customary. They generally take as their subject the intersection of terrestrial and spiritual worlds, as in this piece dedicated to Agaou, the Vodou loa (spirit) of storms.

Drawing on the work of modernist masters such as Matisse, Picasso, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Louis Fratino (b. 1993) creates figurative paintings and drawings depicting everyday life and intimate moments from a queer male perspective. His emotive artworks, based on personal memories and experiences, range from tender portraits of friends and family to explicit images of sexual encounters and, as here, variations on the time-honored subject of the nude model.

Artist, activist, and “spiritual nurse” Reverend Joyce McDonald (b. 1951) was ordained as a minister in 2009, following a long battle with addiction and a 1995 HIV diagnosis. She began working with clay in 1997 while enrolled in an art-therapy program, creating figurative sculptures on themes of survival, love, and healing. McDonald considers her art inseparable from her advocacy: she has founded an HIV-awareness and creative-arts group for young girls and teens; worked with women in shelters and hospitals; written letters to incarcerated women; and coordinated her church’s AIDS ministry while serving as director of its children’s choir. She is also an active artist-member of Visual AIDS.

In her sculptures, drawings, and installations, Indian-born artist Rina Banerjee (b. 1963) addresses migration, diaspora, and the construction of identity. First presented at the 2000 Whitney Biennial, Contagious Migrations considers the fear of disease—from flu outbreaks to the AIDS crisis—in relation to the aversion to difference. Layering unconventional materials such as false fingernails, spices, and Silly Putty, Banerjee evokes bodies on the move despite systems designed to contain them.

Born in Quito to a Quechua father and mestiza mother, Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919–99) is best known for his unflinching meditations on the struggles of Indigenous and other marginalized communities across Latin America. This depiction of a historical subject—the last Inca emperor, Atahualpa—is thus something of a rarity in his oeuvre. Guayasamín achieved significant recognition during his lifetime for both his art and activism, receiving a UNESCO special prize in 1994 for his career-long defense of human rights.

During the independence-era heyday of African portrait photography, itinerant Senegalese photographer Oumar Ka (1930–2020) developed a distinctive approach to the form. Unlike urban studio photographers of the time, such as Mali’s Seydou Keïta and Burkina Faso’s Sanlé Sory, Ka worked outdoors, incorporating the edges of his portable backdrops and the scenery behind them into his compositions. In Reclining Woman, for example, the subject is captured from a respectful distance, allowing details of her environment to enter the frame.

Married into a South African family famed for its ceramics, Siphiwe Nala (1914–2003) was a renowned maker of traditional Zulu beer pots (izinkamba). Izinkamba and their contents are believed to attract ancestors to important life events such as births, marriages, and deaths, and Nala’s aesthetically refined examples were much sought after by community members. This burnished and incised vessel showcases her technical skill, while evident signs of use speak to its ritual and aesthetic value for its owners.