Painted in 2017, Water Table 02 is part of the artist’s series of the same name, showcasing abstract interactions between stone and water elements. Inspired by the story of Henry “Box” Brown, an enslaved African American who was freed by shipping himself from Virginia to Philadelphia in a crate, the Water Table series gracefully explores the themes of intergenerational trauma, silence and struggle.i Inspired by the poetics of displacement and water as a mode of spiritual connection, Dyson’s work has been exhibited across the United States, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
"So what does it mean to understand that kind of cycle of condition of lived experiences? And what does it mean to understand how water works in relationship to culture, in relationship to memory. In my work I have to understand ecology and geography as an ongoing condition of Blackness. So when I go to the ocean now, and go out to these points, I understand the distance that I have from my ancestors, but I also understand that their bodies, their energies, their essences, are absolutely wrapped in those regions." —Torkwase Dyson
