Cobra calls to mind more of the diaspora’s mythology. Striking a similarly relaxed yet authoritative pose, the figure in Cobra directs our eyes both to the 24-karat golden throne and the sharpness of both the lines of Sheppard’s abstract figuration and the subject’s aesthetic. The tassels hang elegantly from an oxblood pant, the foot is positioned to reveal a well-constructed black boot. In the African traditional religion of Vodou, Damballah is the serpent father of the sky and always accompanied by his companion Ayida Wedo, the rainbow. A primordial deity and regarded by some believers to be the first thing created by God, all following creation commenced via Damballah as emissary. Shedding the serpent skin, Damballah created all the waters on the earth. Damballah, the serpent, he moves between land and water, giving it life, and through the earth, uniting the land with the waters below. In Cobra we see this marrying of energies, a continued syncretism of mythologies, as the throne sits against an almost wave like kalunga line, or snakeskin.