Food for Zora

This is called Food for Zora.

I know y’all saw the viral tik tok recently where the young sista was saying everybody is lying when they say Zora Neale Hurston books are great. And she referred to the language as like, backwoods country. It’s interesting we are in an era where people are able to immediately share their thoughts and opinions but often lack proper context. There were so many respectful response videos from people explaining to her that the magic of Zora Neale Hurston IS THE CAPTURING OF DIALECT!

Often we talk down on aspects of our culture because we don’t know how important it is to have that part of our language captured. We say we have no culture with all the rich aspects of it right at our fingertips. I’ll never forget when I realized Zora had listed spells in the back of one of her books. Getting somebody to never come back to my house with a lil onion rubbed on the bottom of their shoes lol

So this piece is homage to Zora Neale Hurston. It’s examines the duality of identity from the spells in the Bible to the spells in Hoodoo. Both figures are wearing fascinators or traditional church crowns. Above the altar they have the ankh and the cross. Black American identity is very complex. This work seems to explore that complexity while celebrating the works of one of our greats.

Food for Zora
Zsudayka Nzinga
Mixed media on canvas
42x38 inches
$8000