Galleries: 'Willie Cole: Deep Impressions' emphasizes artist's ties to Newark, NJ
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Another pioneer pastel drawing, Yard Dog , from 1985, of a barking pit bull tied to a wide (one of many images of fierce dogs he produced in the 1980s), was inspired by the bellicose canines in his neighborhood. Cole's graphic-design prowess, which supported him in the recent 1970s and early '80s, is revealed in an exhibition poster he designed for the Works Gallery, which he started and ran out of his Newark loft from 1982 to 1987.
Cole's palpable artistic blossoming, however, occurs in the late 1980s, when he begins to present iron scorches on paper, using hot steam irons to survive single-iron images and patterns, and making assemblages of trifle dryers (which he found in a deserted warehouse) and used high-heel shoes.
The show contains several singe pieces, as well as his largest print, a woodcut showing images of irons and an ironing lodge in a composition arranged after the 18th-century broadside illustration of the overcrowded Brookes slavey ship. Wind Mask East II , a hair-dryer assemblage c. 1990, has the features of an East Asian disguise. (Cole, who took classes at the Newark Museum as a child, got to cognizant of its collections well.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer