Open Ended Narratives: Mixed Media Assemblages on Wood by Schroeder Cherry from February 18 to April 5, 2025 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

There is an inherent spirituality to the found object assemblage, whether intentional or not. The diverse lived experiences of found materials form a collage of human routine which takes on a persona of its own. Although every piece in Schroeder Cherry’s Open Ended Narratives is rich in material identity, the Angel Can series (2020-2023) isuniquely potent in itswielding of well-travelled components. These pieces “depict Black males as spiritual beings,” writes Cherry, “guides one calls on when in the thick of it.” Buttons, once tied to the habit and movement of a wearer, punctuate the erratically carved wings of the Angels as relics of individual human lives. Bent wires emerge from the halo upon each Angel like coils of hair atop the portrait-like face which humanizes the otherwise ethereal beings. Cherry writes that the Angels “are effective because they have seen some things,” a statement which applies both to the figures embodied in the pieces and the artifacts which constitute them. 

The relationship between the object identities of the Angels and their spiritual power is best understood through the lens of mystical devices. Upon first encountering these pieces I was reminded of the Central African Nkisi, objects inhabited by spirits. Both visually and thematically, there are many commonalities between Cherry’s Angel Cans and the power figure, which is a subclass of Nkisi taking a human likeness. The can which comprises the heart of the pieces evokes the special cavities in the bodies of power figures which held magical substances. Instead of sacred medicines and herbs are cans of old bay or tea, substances of significance in the everyday. The wires puncturing the Angels call to mind the Kongo power figure called the Nkondi, into which nails are driven to activate the spirit within. Another symbol which recalls the Nkondi are the mirrors ornamenting each Angel; the Kongo tradition adorns them on the figure as tools of vision into the spirit world. If this is indeed their representative function on Cherry’s piece, they would be working in tandem with the key on each Angel which Cherry describes as “represent[ing] tools of access.” 

According to Cherry, this series was inspired by the Garcia Marquez short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” which tells the tale of an elderly angel that fell to earth. In the story, the angel is held captive and deeply misunderstood: he does not fit the expectations of the church, nor can he perform the miracles that the townspeople want. Turned into an attraction in a traveling circus, the angel is held in a chicken coop. This tale parallels not only that of African power figures stolen and imprisoned in museums by white “explorers,” but the way in which all elements of African culture were captured, misunderstood, then discarded by the colonizer. Disparate discarded materials come together to form the Angel Can with a broad basis of lived experience, fragmentary yet rich with meaning. Thematically, the syncretism between consumerism, western religious iconography and African tradition reflects their interlinked nature in African American culture. At the center of each Angel Can is the element which unites all of the distinct cultural and material parts: the face. If the mirrors are the windows into the spirit world, then the eyes of each Angel is its window into the human world. The face is perhaps the most intuitively understood manifestation of identity, and the Black male face defining each Angel unifies the individual identities of its components into an artistic whole.

Quotes cite the artist statement and descriptive texts written by Schroeder Cherry for this exhibition.

Additional information gathered from MacGaffey, Wyatt (1993). Astonishment & Power, The Eyes of Understanding: Kongo Minkisi. National Museum of African Art.