Masks

Masks have long been a popular feature in the art of many cultures throughout history. Masks can do many things. They can hide our true persona and our feelings, or they can project new feelings or depict whom we might want to become. Masks give us an opportunity for a short respite from our lives to try on a new role or perspective.

Masks have been incorporated into the artwork of many artists. And masks can be an art object of their own. Of course, masks play a much different role in our current lives, but that doesn’t mean that artists have not reflected on the role of masks as an object of expression.

For this artistic exercise, teacher Alyssa Harris and her students explored the work of Lois Mailou Jones whose work is exhibited in the Smithsonian and many other museums. Students had to draw their own mask and then include a background that focused on line and shape and were encouraged to use bright colors similar to Jones.

Find out more about how artists have used masks in their artwork from the Masks Coursework Guide from the Tate Museum in the United Kingdom. And the BBC explores the increasing use of the masks we come into contact with daily as objects of contemporary artists’ work in How Masks have Appeared in Art.

If you’ve found the masks, you are at the Pulaski Library. If this is your last stop, you can drop your game card off in the library during business hours so you can be entered to win art supplies. Be sure to write LIBRARY on your card in the block with the word MASKS.