Look at a painting by Cora Marshall and the eyes of the subject grab you and draw you in. Whether the pairs of eyes stare out from beneath colorful and intricate masks or from under tear-moistened fringes of eyelashes, they all ask questions, demand answers, and some tell stories of a past that now seems hard to imagine.

According to Marshall The Masque is a series of paintings that explores the "choreographed rhythms and patterns that both conceals and reveals our connections to our past. Masks, ceremony, and symbols blur the lines between the before and the after, the face and the place. It is a celebration and a festival performance that affirms spiritual bonds to our ancestry and the power of being centered." The photo on the right is sixth painting in the series.

Another series, To Be Sold, was based on advertisements printed in the late 1700s and early 1800s for slaves. Marshall became intrigued by these ads. There were no names, no visual descriptions, unlike the detailed ads looking for runaways.

"As I came across more and more, I became curious," Marshall said. "Who are they? Where did they go? Were they being separated from their families? Will they run away? The gold in the works and frame references the use of people as chattel."

The painting on the right was inspired by this ad:

A Likely Negro garl about 12 Years old Country Born, To be sold, Enquire of The Printers. Oct. 2, 1769.

Cora Marshall, born in Washington, DC, is an artist, educator, and scholar. She received her B.F.A. from Howard University with a major in art and a minor in education. After teaching art in the Alexandria Virginia City Schools for many years, she returned to school to acquire a Master of Science in Education from Bank Street College of Education with Parsons School of Design and her doctorate in art from New York University. Currently, Dr. Marshall is the Art Department's Chairperson at Central Connecticut State University. There she teaches research, theory, and practice in Art Education as well as classes in Mixed Media art and educational technology. As an artist, she centers her work in spirituality and creates art that seeks out the connections to and lessons from her past. By mixing symbols and meaning, by affirming the potency of the spirits, by honoring the holy, she "extends an invitation to contemplate the significance and depth of the power within."

Dr. Marshall is currently working in and across the medium of painting, photography, and video. She has exhibited both internationally and nationally including National Conference of Artists; Kumasi, Ghana; A.I.R. Gallery NYC; Skylight Restoration Gallery in Brooklyn; Hammonds House Gallery in Atlanta; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts; Craftery Gallery, in Hartford; the Rosenburg Gallery at NYU; and Picture That, LLC, Stamford, CT with multiple venues.

As a scholar, her current research interest focuses on contemporary African American artists, in particular, Black women artists (African/African-Native women artists). She has presented at numerous professional venues including the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Cornell University, Columbia University Teachers College in NY, College Art Association, Connecticut Art Education Association, and Southern Connecticut State University, in New Haven. In the spring of 2000, her article on Jean-Michele Basquiat was published in the International Review of African American Art.

You can see more of Dr. Marshall's work on her Web site.

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