My Ancestral Journey – 50,000 Years Ago

In May 2014 I participated in IN THE MOMENT; Self Portraits by Twenty Women Artists, a show at the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene, OR. I displayed pieces that will be in My Ancestry alcove of Eve’s Imprint. Having lived and worked all over the world, LiDoña Wagner Self-Portrait 2014 is a triptych rendered in maps of the world. The deer stands for the 41% of my DNA that matches that of people in Denmark. The Etruscan symbol on my hands represents the 40% of my DNA that I share with people from Tuscany. The goddess symbols point to the 17% of my DNA that matches that of people in the Near East.

The hanging stabile traces the migration journey of my maternal and paternal ancestors, a journey that began 50,000 years ago in Ethiopia. My maternal ancestors kept going north, along the Nile Valley, crossing the northern end of the Red Sea into the Near East, and then straight north through the Caucasus into Scandinavia. My paternal ancestors crossed into Arabia at the southern end of the Red Sea. They made their way north into the Near East and then went west, following the Mediterranean coast into the Iberian peninsula. I originally painted the vignettes shown on the stabile in a Heritage Mandala but felt they needed more emphasis, thus the stabile.

This link is a radio commentary on the show at Maude Kerns Gallery that included my installation of three pieces.
http://klcc.org/post/moment-self-portraits