Emergent (Crystal Mouths)
by Harold Offeh • November 2022 • Artist commission
‘Emergent (Crystal Mouths)’ is a series of new photographs from Harold Offeh’s ongoing ‘Crystal Mouths project’ (2021–). Specially commissioned for this issue, these photographs present a series of rocks and crystals emerging from Offeh’s mouth.
The mouth or opening becomes a topographic feature from which the object is emanant. There is a juxtaposition of moist and soft flesh with hard crystalline forms. In choosing the rocks and crystals Offehwas interested in their origins and the links of such materials as quartz, pyrite (fool’s gold) and amethyst to the African landscape and the extraction of natural resources.