Rolling Mill: Steel is the Master, Lady is the Power

Thornton Dial’s Rolling Mill: Steel is the Master, Lady is the Power centers on the tension between male and female forces as powers of creation, with the rolling mill serving as a metaphor for labor, human relationships, and creation. The woman and tiger are recurring motifs in Dial’s oeuvre, with the tiger often serving as a representation of the African American male. Here, the tiger, marked by red eyes, looms over the woman, suggesting male power and dominance, while her vivid purple form commands the composition and appears to support the tiger. Their relationship reflects Dial’s engagement with power, labor, gender, sexuality, and Black identity, as well as his response to the changing conditions of the American South, a region he knew intimately from growing up in Alabama. In particular, the work speaks to the transition from the rural “Old” South, shaped by sharecropping and agricultural labor, to the industrial “New” South and the rise of the Black industrial worker.

This tension is reinforced by Dial’s densely layered, painterly and sculptural surface, constructed from sealing compound, garden hoses, rope, steel, found metal objects and enamel. The rough materials are transformed into a complex visual language, with elements pushing outward from the canvas, camouflaging the tiger within the dynamic surface. The transformation of simple, industrial materials echoes the broader transformation at the heart of the work: the shift from the agricultural Old South to the industrial New South and the changing conditions of Black labor and identity.