16 screen prints, Städtische Sammlung Erlangen
In her illustrations, Diana Ejaita combines her Nigerian and Italian heritage in narrative silhouette images. Her high-contrast works with their soft and lively patterns have already graced the covers of The New Yorker and The New York Times. In the group exhibition Long Distance Call. Das Operndorf Afrika im Kunstpalais, shown in 2022, Ejaita was involved as a former resident artist of Operndorf Afrika and presented a selection of her prints in a large, wallpaper-like wall installation. The 16 prints Bodies, Tales and Landscapes are a continuation of these works.
The motifs for the various illustrations are inspired by West African tales and fairy tales that Ejaita collected and recorded during her stay in Burkina Faso and which were told to her by the local people. These are stories in which the survival of their protagonists depends on their knowledge of the magical and spiritual world, on their ability to transform their mind and body into something else in order to realize their full potential.
“A wound opened right in the middle of her back, between her shoulders on the wrinkled old skin. As she got closer, the wound enlarged, becoming wider and wider. The wound became a passageway. It was possible to enter the wound - it was a door to another world, a hidden dimension.”
(Burkinabe fairy tale)
