THE BEAST as EVIL TONGUE Print

The apostle James in his Scripture describes the evil tongue as “fire” and “ world of iniquity"; derogatory speech about another person is considered to be a very serious sin in the Jewish tradition. The Beast – as described in the Book of Revelation - makes use of slander and defamation to cause and spread suspect, resentment and, above all, envy between Humans to annihilate them. In the African traditional Voodoo religion - that originated in Benin where the artist had the opportunity of talking with a Voodoo priest and attending real Voodoo rites - an important part is devoted to remove spells cast upon someone by envious persons, i.e. envy is considered the root of all evil, physical and psychological, that can affect humans; this notion is amazingly consistent with the theory of “Mimetic Violence” as surmised by the French scholar René Girard, who – in his books – declares that our desire for a certain object is always provoked by the desire of another person — the model — for this same object; the mimetic rivalry (i.e the Envy) that develops from the struggle for the possession of the objects is contagious and leads to the generalized violence that will annihilate the community. The artist has always been capable of seeing in Nature, particularly in the branches, roots and logs of cut off trees, peculiar “forms” - often originating from her wide reading and traveling experiences - that she tries to bring about making them up with clay to get the configuration she had “seen”; in this case two similar roots have been fixed together, the unnecessary branches have been cut off and a tongue, made of wood and looking like a blade, has been added to the root; finally the whole sculpture has been bright varnished; the eyes have been outlined by red marking two existing root reliefs and the red tongue that sticks out from a split of the root alludes to the evil tongue as “fire”. Look for more pictures of this artwork in the Gallery section of my website: www.bezec-lu.com

Print:Giclee on Fine Art Paper

Size:9 W x 12 H x 0.1 D in

Size with Frame:14.25 W x 17.25 H x 1.2 D in

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