Scarification's Gift

Pencil & Inktense
25.4 x 34.3 cm
Apr 2010

           This piece focuses on the beauty of tribal African culture. Aspects of this culture that I focused on were the jewelry and scarification. Scarification is the puncturing of cutting of patterns into upper levels of the skin, lifting the skin with fish hooks or thorn yields, and then when the cut heals, scars are left. Scarification, although considered torturous and strange to outside cultures, is part of Sub-Saharan African cultures' cultural system and religious beliefs. They believe that scars are beautiful and make a person apart of the community. Scars showed a the maturity and growth of a person in tribal African culture.