Silence (Blood Wedding)
Silence (Blood Wedding) (I998) comprised of thirteen pieces of sculpture. Dube transformed the composite of a human skeleton into separate, isolated images encased in opulent, sensuous blood-red velvet, suggesting the body as site of both pleasure and pain, where desire and death forever intertwine …. ” as Kamala Kapoor described in her interview with the artist, (Kapoor 2000:41).
Dube’s own narrative on her work: “When my father was first diagnosed with cancer in 1996, my relationship with death was revived in an immediate and physical way… Some connections were triggered at this point and I began looking for the skeleton my brother had once used for his medical studies. Ironically, these bones which I finally found in a sack in my mother’s storeroom, were my first ‘found objects’ the remains after the fact of death. I knew I had to work in reverse- from death back into life. This became a challenge for me: first using one bone (the ulna) to make the ‘Flower’, and then carving others, combining them into new structures and forms- a bird, a fan, a garland-things close to my inner world, translated into sculptures that are simple aphoristic metaphors or haiku poem” (quoted in Kapoor 2000:42).