The merging, burning, and layering of raw organic materials are common processes within Francheska Alcántara’s practice. Their use of certain materials, such as the Hispano cuaba soap, reflects their works’ overall engagement with the customs and subjectivity of Caribbean and Black diasporic identity. Manufactured in the Dominican Republic, the soap is a quintessential Caribbean household item with multifaceted uses, including as laundry detergent, for treating wounds, patching leaks, or cleansing the body. The amber-colored, cubed-shaped material, made from the extracted oil of a pine tree, is a grounding element for Alcántara’s newest sculptural series, Tiger Jaw (2022), in which they merge and fuse the soap onto a custom-made wooden structure.

In Tiger Jaw III (2022), a darkened piece of wood, burnt and scorched by fire, emerges from the center of a charred and melted cuaba soap. The work’s unique, organic shape, inspired by forms in the artist’s drawings, suggests a vessel holding and containing a poetic power. The glistening soap is akin to a salve for a wound, soothing and healing a burn injury to the skin. Their fusion of organic materials (sourced from their residency at Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma) transforms Alcántara’s sculptural work into an illustration of their psycho-geographical journey in Tulsa, especially their consideration of the city’s history. Alcántara’s sculptures offer a path for emergence and transformation, and function as sacred capsules for collective memory. Their composition of materials from the Caribbean and the central United States converges different lineages of Black experience into a vessel that offers the potentiality of healing.

Artist texts by Marissa Del Toro