Michael Ross: The Road to Timbuktu
Terminal 3
Michael Ross: The Road to Timbuktu
Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in the Republic of Mali, is within the arc of the Niger River in West Africa. Many centuries ago, Timbuktu was a financial and intellectual center. Early in the thirteenth century, as part of the Mali Empire (1230–1600), the region experienced profound cultural change. Extensive trade networks produced a flourishing book trade that attracted prominent Islamic scholars and writers, establishing Timbuktu as a pillar of academic learning. The city was the final destination of the trans-Saharan caravan route that linked Europe, the Arab world, and sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout the centuries, the city has maintained a mystic appeal that attracts many travelers.
In the fall of 2008, photographer and painter Michael Ross started his journey from Cotonou, on the coast of Benin, wearing flip-flop sandals and carrying a small backpack containing watercolor paints, a camera, and an old French grammar book. He travelled by bus, taxi, tractor-trailer, camel, riverboat, and on foot, exploring the towns and countryside that comprise the vast, arid plains of West Africa. He stayed in Niamey and Téra in Niger, Dori and Bani in Burkina Faso. He traveled to Begnimato, a small village on top of the Bandiagara Cliff in Dogon Country, in southern Mali. Near Hombori, Ross hiked around the Main de Fatima, a giant, hand-shaped, five-spiraled rock formation, taking photographs and making sketches that would influence his paintings. In Gao, he arranged a ride on a leaky, wooden, sixty-foot-long riverboat with a straw-mat roof, which transported him along the Niger River to Timbuktu. Under a clear, star-studded sky on top of a sand dune at the threshold of a thousand-mile-long desert, Ross reached the apex of his journey.
Since the invention of photography, painters have embraced the medium to reference facial expressions, light effects, and motion. Some notable painters were also accomplished photographers. Ross's photographs document his journey and inform his oil paintings. He uses these images as photographic sketches to enhance the context and mood of his work. For him, photography is an aid to his painting practice, and a medium of expression in its own right. These are his ways to express faith in the world's creative bounty.
Photography is not permitted.
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This exhibit is beyond the security checkpoint, where only ticketed passengers are allowed.
