"The Grim Work of Death" by Christopher Myers

2022

Christopher Myers' textile depicts Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion.

Christopher Myers’ 2022 textile, The Grim Work of Death, depicts Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion. Born into slavery in Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner became a deeply religious man guided by prophetic visions. On August 21, 1831, Turner led a group of enslaved and free African Americans in a rebellion that killed roughly 55 white men, women, and children. In his Confessions, dictated from prison, Turner described the rebels’ efforts as “the grim work of death.”

Christopher Myers’ textile of the same name includes a man in shackles holding a blood-soaked leaf, alluding to Turner’s 1825 vision of a bloodied corn field. The multicolored circles trace the arc of the weapons used for both labor and resistance, later known in popular culture as the “rainbow round my shoulder.” The sewn lips reference both Turner’s description of his lips being unsealed upon initiating his rebellion and modern protest practices of sewing one's lips together.