The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle

Thornton Dial, Sr., The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle, 2003, plastic soda bottles, doll, clothing, bedding, wire, found metal, rubber glove, turtle shell, artificial flowers, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Partial gift of Debbie Simon and Tim Grumbacher and museum purchase, 2020.80
Copied Thornton Dial, Sr., The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle, 2003, plastic soda bottles, doll, clothing, bedding, wire, found metal, rubber glove, turtle shell, artificial flowers, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood, 75 x 112 x 13 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Partial gift of Debbie Simon and Tim Grumbacher and museum purchase, 2020.80

Artwork Details

Title
The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle
Artist
Date
2003
Location
Dimensions
75 x 112 x 13 in.
Credit Line
Partial gift of Debbie Simon and Tim Grumbacher and museum purchase
Mediums
Mediums Description
plastic soda bottles, doll, clothing, bedding, wire, found metal, rubber glove, turtle shell, artificial flowers, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood
Classifications
Keywords
  • Allegory — life
Object Number
2020.80
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2020.80

Artwork Description

"When I start making something, I gather up the pieces I want to work with," Thornton Dial once explained. "Everything I pick up be something that done did somebody some good in their lifetime. . . . When you make things beautiful out of another person's ideas, it make the world more beautiful."

Dial mastered the art of speaking through objects--he gathered, combined, and painted them to create artworks that ask us to look closely and think carefully. Here, he invokes a jungle landscape, a place where survival can be hard. In Dial's junglescape, wild and urban realms are indistinguishable: plastic cups and bottles are plants, rubber gloves and rags are vines. The entire scene is conjured from something found, repurposed, and reimagined.

Across nine decades in Alabama, Dial experienced racism and oppression firsthand, but he discovered that he could speak freely through artmaking. Dial's critiques of race relations were often somber, dark in color and mood. Yet here, warm hues shower the day in optimism; polarized divisions of black and white give way to a sunny palette of possibility.