"Deep Impressions: Willie Cole Works on Paper" Members' Opening Reception
Cole built his reputation as a sculptor and an assemblage artist who transforms objects such as hair dryers and high-heel shoes into striking African masks. As Brooks chief curator Marina Pacini has noted, Cole's works on paper are a natural two-dimensional extension of the artist's sculptures, with an emphasis on "repetition, appropriation, and transformation." In lighter moments, the stenciled or scorched image of a steam iron -- practically Cole's signature -- becomes colorful petals on a flower. The same shape, in more serious and introspective moments, is recast as tribal scarification on a warrior's face, a shield, a mask, or armor.
In one of his best-known works, Stowage, irons and ironing boards are used to evoke the image of a slave ship and a diagram for how to store the human cargo.
"Deep Impressions" features posters, paintings, photographs, and digital prints. The best work transforms American industrial detritus into exotic African artifacts, while ink drawings of bluesmen on their knees and lascivios women in burning beds find the insightful, often elusive artist darning some otherwise threadbare subjects. -- By Chris Davis
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Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
- 1934 Poplar, Memphis Midtown Tennessee 38104
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544-6226
- www.brooksmuseum.org/
- (based on 1 user review)
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