Las Comadres | Matriarchs Series
By Liz Cohen
Liz Cohen, Las Comadres | Matriarchs series, 2023. Mud, gold, wax.
The propaganda of the Cold War, alongside the Reagan-era War on Drugs, encouraged a predominant media narrative that Colombia was solely a nation of violence and poverty. To counter these narratives, Cohen’s parents immersed her in the rich traditions of Colombian sacred crafts, including the processing of gold, coffee, and Chamba (black clay) pottery. These ancestral technologies originated in Colombia, outside Eurocentric notions of material wealth, to signify class, spirituality, and religious offerings. The Las Comadres | Matriarchs series are ceramic works that serve as Colombian tótems, guardians for women whose labor accounts for 70% of the cultivation of coffee beans in the country. This work celebrates Colombia’s extensive cultural contributions to global trade and exchange through this new body of ceramic work.
