SANTA BARBARA / SHANGO

Cepp Selgas/Shango Blood and Milk/acrylic on canvas/60"x72"/2000.

The great Andres Serrano has a photograph which it's just the picture of two rectangular containers; one with filled blood and the other with milk. That striking image has haunted me since I first saw it at the New Museum of New York in the mid-eighties . It happens that when I was trying to conceive a painting representing Shango, for my show Los hijos de los Dioses, back in 2000 for Agustin Rivero Gallery in Coral Gables; my Shango Blood and Milk became an homage to such Serrano's masterful photograph.
Some believe that the white accent in Shango's red cloth represents the symbol of his mother's milk: Obbatala. And of course the color red symbolizes blood; the warrior's blood or War it self.