Images(2)

Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Dinka Woman's Hearth

Artist/Maker William Morris (United States, b. 1957)

Date2003

Medium14-piece hand sculpted glass wall installation

Dimensionsvarious dimensions

ClassificationsVisual Works

Credit LineGift of Lin Arison

Terms

Object number2008.16.1A-N

On View

On view

Collections

Art of North America

DescriptionOne of the artist’s multi-part masterpieces, Dinka Woman’s Hearth reflects Morris’s ongoing fascination with anthropology, hunting, and the symbiotic relationship in nature between man and beast. Although its title mentions the Dinka, a Nilotic people constituting the largest ethnic group in the South Sudan, the work itself does not address any specific culture. Instead, Morris combines references to Native American, pre-Columbian, and Oceanic cultures with animal forms and stylized human figures to present his own fanciful narrative.

Reminiscent of ethnographic or non-Western art installations in American and European museums, the objects are displayed frontally and do not interact. Although most are glass, Morris has treated their reflective and refractive surfaces with powders so that they resemble materials such as clay and bone.