Titled Here we die, Aimé Mpane’s design for Sanctuary is based on one of his carved plywood portraits from a series of the same name. He creates these portraits with an ancient tool called an adze, which allows him to scrape away layers of wood and reveal his subject by reduction. Each panel is roughly twelve by twelve inches: the equivalent of a human head’s surface area. “Because my work deals with problems of race and the stereotypes of black people, the three layers within four-millimeter-thick plywood make me think of the three layers within human skin,” he explains. Despite the dark histories underlying his work, Mpane’s portraits are not somber: his embrace of bright color lends an air of inextinguishable hope and promise.
