“Ogun Sisters” by Willie Cole

22 x 30 inches,mixed serigraph on paper, limited edition #24 of 55 — unframed

Willie Cole (b. Newark, New Jersey, 1955) is a noted contemporary African-American sculptor and conceptual and visual artist.Cole is best known for assembling and transforming ordinary domestic and used objects such as irons, ironing boards, high-heeled shoes, hair dryers, bicycle parts, wooden matches, lawn jockeys, and other discarded appliances and hardware, into imaginative and powerful works of art and installations. Through the repetitive use of single objects in multiples, Coles assembled sculptures acquire a transcending and renewed metaphorical meaning, or become a critique of our consumer culture. Coles work is generally discussed in the context of postmodern eclecticism, combining references and appropriation ranging from African and African-American imagery, to Dadas readymades and Surrealisms transformed objects, and icons of American pop culture or African and Asian masks, into highly original and witty assemblages. Some of Coles interactive installations also draw on simple game board structures that include the element of chance while physically engaging the viewer. Coles widely recurring symbolic and artistic object that was initially brought to the attention of the art world in the mid-1980s has been the steam iron. While Coles unique approach of imprinting the steam irons marks on a variety of media result in a wide-ranging decorative potential of his scorchings, these scorches are also to be viewed as a reference to Coles African-American heritage.