Phrygian (Cap in the Air),

2012

African American history informs a symbolic language that carries across Puryear’s work in sculpture, drawings, and prints. The curving shape in Phrygian is drawn from the soft felt caps with curling tips associated with emancipated Roman slaves and adopted as a symbol of freedom during the French and American revolutions. Wheeled carts bearing burdens are another repeated form, a powerful symbol of the historical weight of colonial trade among Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States—the basis of the economy of slavery. In Black Cart the imposing silhouette of a wagon evokes both the unequal burdens of labor and trade economies and the wagons used to transport runaway slaves along the Underground Railroad.