Artist Renée Stout (American, b. 1958)
Title Red Room at Five (b)
Date 1999
Medium Chromogenic color print
Dimensions Image: 4 1/2 × 6 in. (11.4 × 15.2 cm)
Sheet: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Portfolio: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Credit Line Museum purchase with funds from the Clarence W. and Mildred Long Art Purchase Fund, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 2011.266B
About this Work
This image is part of a beautiful red silk-clad portfolio containing six color photographs in the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art collection (2011.266A-.266F). The cover is stamped with a gold symbol for Erzulie, the Haitian voodoo goddess of love. By referencing her African-diaspora spiritual heritage, Renée Stout explores themes of self-discovery, empowerment, and healing. Erzulie is a symbol of women’s strength. Known not only for her passion and beauty, she is also a fierce protectorate of women and children, who was often evoked in cases of domestic violence or betrayal by a lover.
Although these photographs were initially taken as studies for paintings, Stout later sequenced them for the portfolio. What results is a narrative suggesting romantic longing and loss a prospective lovers’ rendezvous at five in a passionate, fiery red room. A clothed woman looks out of a window in anticipation (a), a luxurious table of perfume bottles is set (a popular offering to Erzulie) (b), a spirit (angel/cupid) rests on satin and velvet pillows (c), a nude woman waits (d), she rises to leave (e), and then only an empty room with a darkened bed remains (f). Stout frequently appears in her works as her alter ego Fatima Mayfield, a fictitious herbalist and fortune teller. By taking on another character, Stout frees herself to confront difficult issues, such as romantic relationships, social ills, and financial woes. In a bit of life imitating art, Stout’s ex-lover who helped to take these photographs sued her for additional credit, which appears in the colophon.
