Label Text:
A master of layering complex visual puns and symbols, Willie Cole centers this work on one of his favorite motifs —the iron. The repeating impressions of an iron decorate the border, framing an image of two young women pressing clothes. The women’s heads are overlaid with the sacred masks of the Dan people of West Africa, whose shapes also evoke the outline of an iron. The scientific representation of the element iron overlays the bottom of the image, while the Haitian vèvè (or sign) for Ogun—the Yoruba deity of war and iron—floats above the two figures. Cole evokes cultural associations with these varied emblems, from domestic labor and the legacy of slavery, to the spiritual traditions of peoples displaced from their homeland.

-Ellen Alvord, Weatherbie Curator of Education and Academic Programs, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (Sept. 2017)

Tags:
prints; abstract; symmetry; African; masks; African American

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+2012.42

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.

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