untitled (Womba, version 2, RS9805), Renée Stout

Exhibition Label: “Embodiment,” Nov-2005, Kate Meyer Intrigued by ideas of self-constructions, Stout’s art straddles real life and fantasy. According to Stout, the Womba is a healing doll that is placed in the homes of the sick, who draw healing power from the bones hanging off of this child-like figure. While the Womba particularly references African tribal art stylistically, it is an invented form of Stout’s imagination. Archive Label 2003: Renee Stout is best known for her sculptures that are made from found objects. Untitled is a print of a sculpture titled Womba Doll. Consider notions of containment, multiple meanings, and your expectations of a doll when looking at this work. • Consider the form of the doll. Is the outline of the doll open or enclosed by lines? • Look at the body of the doll. What other ways has Stout created a sense of containment or a closed space? • Even though the doll is figurative, or recognizable, what makes it look less like a doll? • What associations can you make with the bones? Are these animal bones or human bones? Or, can we tell? Stout’s work addresses the loss of African ancestry, the history of African Americans, and the process of personal healing. Like Kara Walker’s narratives, Womba is from an ongoing fictional story written by Stout that chronicles the travels of Colonel Frank, who writes and sends collected objects to his niece Dorothy. The Womba doll in Stout’s story comes from a fictional island named Ibn. Ibn means bone and the Ibnese believed that the presence of bones heal the sick. Renee Stout was first exposed to African art as a child when she encountered an African minkisi object while taking art classes at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. The object intrigued her and ultimately African minkisi objects, which are associated with Bakongo (now the Congo) in west Central Africa, became an important influence on her work. In traditional Bakongo culture, the minkisi was any fabricated object, charm, or thing that contained powers that had the ability to heal or harm. Despite the European colonization of Bakongo, the use of minkisi objects has survived and is still practiced in contemporary Africa. Although Untitled (Womba, version 2) and Stout’s sculptures do not function as traditional minkisi objects, they are animated with “life and power” that attempt to bridge the past and present.