Cornucopia

Print

Purdue University Galleries

Name/Title

Cornucopia

Entry/Object ID

2008.15

Description

This multiple block linocut print displays two open legs with flowers coming out of a vagina or hole. As a cornucopia looks, the vagina continues the motif abstractly with flowers. The print seems to be a white layer and a carved black layer on each other. Then, multiple flower blocks are printed variously in size, shape and location to give the print movement.

Type of Print

Woodcut, Linocut

Artwork Details

Medium

Paper

Made/Created

Artist

Wanda Ewing

Date made

circa 2008

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Tertiary Object Term

Woodcut

Nomenclature Secondary Object Term

Print, Relief

Nomenclature Primary Object Term

Nomenclature Sub-Class

Graphic Documents

Nomenclature Class

Documentary Objects

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

Dimensions

Height

30 in

Width

30 in

Color

White, Black, Green, Purple, Blue, Yellow, Orange

Exhibitions

She Contains Multitudes (2020)

Inklandia: Contemporary Prints (2008)

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Cultural/Historical Context

Label

Cornucopia Wanda Ewing (1970 – 2013) Linocut, 2007 Nebraska-born artist Wanda Ewing was a printmaker, painter, multimedia, and fiber artist, best known for her provocative series of pinups Black as Pitch, Hot as Hell. Her work examines black female representation, identity, sexuality, beauty standards, empowerment, and objectification. Her work is often comical in nature, but under the surface brews a biting social commentary that confronts and unsettles the viewer. In Cornucopia Ewing renders the lower half of a black female birthing an abundance of flowers in bright Pop Art-esque colors, calling to mind Mother Nature or Mother Earth. Cornucopia is part of a larger series featuring the truncated bodies of black women in various poses and expressions. The series was inspired by Ewing’s chance encounter with a collection of antique porcelain half-dolls with impossibly tiny waists. Their forms spoke to Ewing’s own explorations of unrealistic female beauty standards and their effects and demands on black women’s bodies and hair.