Strange Fruit - Limited edition of 5 Artwork

Strange Fruit is my second portrait of Nina Simone. This is no.05 of the B- sides of the Heroes series. Her first portrait was called ‘Sugar In My Bowl’ and is part of the A-Sides series limited & signed edition 1/1. All artworks from the Heroes series are fully staged from separate found images and are all digitally manipulated. We see Nina Simone in a large room with a New York loft-like atmosphere. She shares this space with herself, on piano; her young aged daughterLisa and reverent Martin Luther King. King represents here her combativeness and the racial divided world she grew up in. The few bottles of Jajem standing on the kitchen worktop are referring to both her relationship to alcohol as to Amsterdam. This sophisticated space annex industrial living room almost seems a somewhat lonesome happy home. But it’s not. The wall-window behind the balustrade has the appearance of a theatre facade. This wall is filled with images of the racial segregation. The roots were Nina grew on and what she transcended. Simone stood her ground when it came to her right as a black singer and she demanded equal rights and opportunity. By doing so she was besides being a great artist, an inspiration for many. Her activism is clear and present in the song Strange Fruit, the song where this artwork is named after. The song Strange Fruit describes the bodies of black men hanging on a tree as strange fruit. A gruesome American history that still resonates in the V.S. of today. Here below a few lines to illustrate. “Southern trees Bear strange fruit Blood on the leaves And blood at the roots Black bodies Swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hangin’” Earlier Billy Holliday performed this song.It is based on the poem Bitter fruit from1937 that was published by Abel Meeropol under a pseudonym ‘Lewis Allan’. Nina Simone had the quality to bend something ugly as racial discrimination to something powerful and beautiful. She was a great source of inspiration. But militant and strong as she was on stage, she did not succeed to get her own life on the right track. She suffered manic depressions and her private life was a roller coaster. Her daughter Lisa, portrayed here on the balustrade with her teddy bear, was often a victim of her mother’s neglect and rage. She is probably less complimenting. Nina Simone is a story with many sides. She is a hero; heroin with quit a rough edge or the downside of great talent.

Mixed Media:Screenprinting on Canvas

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:5

Size:47.2 W x 31.5 H x 0.8 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.