blackartists – Painting After Art is Dead

Howard Smith

Spotted below at Expo Chicago. Howard was (1928-2021) an African-American artist, designer and collector. He worked with paper, pigments, wood, clay, textiles and metal. He designed for industry—e.g. print textiles for Vallila, tableware and interior items for Arabia (the esteemed ceramics factory in Helsinki). He planned interior designs for corporate offices, public buildings and cruise ships. He especially enjoyed recycling items like scrap metal, used cardboard, castoff clothing–which he took and created into whimsical compositions. More

#howardsmith

Jeffrey Gibson

Sited below at Expo Chicago- it’s actually a functional drum. Apparently as always I’m the last to be on the know (he has almost 30k followers). His work has headed in new directions (although the galleria at informed me he still uses some of the drums in performances).

#jeffreygibson

Rico Gatson

Below spotted at Expo Chicago in the Miles McEniry booth with a number of other creatives crushing it in the abstract “game.” Perusing his IG feed, looks like he enjoyed some of the work I did. I see some strong Overstreet influence at work (Rico is also a Black painter).

#ricogatson

Gregory Coates

is featured in Return To A Place By The Sea at The Church.

#gregorycoates

Tomashi Jackson

Tomashi Jackson makes compositions—often three-dimensional assemblages composed of layered paper, textiles, plastics, embroidery, prints, photo transfers, and other materials—that meditate on the systemic abuse, disenfranchisement, and displacement of communities of color.

#tomashijackson

Devin B. Johnson

is one of Fountainhead’s March’s artists-in-residence.

More
#devinbjohnson

Ainsley Burrows

BmoreArt notes Ainsley’s exhibition Raktism and Metachaos. Burrows’ practice mainly uses two methodologies: NeoChaos and Raktism. The former is characterized by expressive gestures and lines, and deep, passionate swaths of color. With it, he explores the reverberations of a history that continues to affect him, showing how the past is alive and how we must make its legacy visible.

#ainsleyburrows

Atta Kwami

Larry Ossei-Mensah predicts to Artsy that abstraction by artists of color will become even more prominent in 2023. The genre, Ossei-Mensah believes, is essential to shifting the public’s belief that artists of color should only make representational work that is immediately legible. He refers to Atta.

#attakwami

Bonolo Kavula

Artforum notes that Bonolo decided early in her career what she did not want her art practice to be about: the political burden of being a Black woman in South Africa. Born in 1992, the artist found that most of the art history she encountered in her country was charged with the discourses of racial and cultural identity politics. Since her time studying at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town, Kavula has been determined to play and experiment with form.

If readers find the broader conversation about abstraction in the hands of Black creatives interesting, you should look at Artsy’s ’23 curator outlook in which Larry Ossei-Mensah predicts that abstraction by artists of color will become even more prominent in 2023.

#bonolokavula

Melvin Edwards

ArtNews asks us who gets to be abstract in the context of revisiting Frank Bowling‘s show from 1969, “5+1”(a show which also included Al, Jack, Daniel and William)? I had heard of Melvin Edwards before from listening to this amazing artist talk. In my head I didn’t lump Melvin in with Sam and William because candidly there is a lot of recognizable materials in his work (see below) and then of course this article made me question that. tldr- the punchline of the essay is that, when Stony Brook attempted to re-stage the show the curators found significant archival gaps because the academic gatekeepers of the late ’60s didn’t deem the show important enough to document. The show reboot also includes many black women such as Howardena and Mary.

More (and more #blackartists)

#melvinedwards

Hale Woodruff

Green Family Art Foundation presents Black Abstractionists: From Then Till Now, curated by Dexter Wimberly. Readers can find the other artists featured in the show on this blog. His early work is figurative. During the mid-1960s Woodruff and fellow artist Romare Bearden were instrumental in starting the Spiral organization, a collaboration of African-American artists working in New York. Woodruff’s New York works were greatly influenced by abstract expressionism. More

#halewoodruff

Carmen Neely

I think I first spotted Carmen in Leasho’s IG feed…

#carmenneely

Ferren Gipson

is a fantastic artist working in textiles, and is also a historian, podcaster and author.

#ferrengipson

Alonzo Davis

Davis’ six-decade-long career (which Parrasch Heijnen is pleased to highlight in the gallery’s first solo exhibition covering the same) has explored a wide range of media and methods, from mural to print, painting, sculpture, performance, and installation. As co-founder of the Brockman Gallery, the first major Black-owned contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles (1967 – 1990), Alonzo Davis sought to champion Black artists including David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson, Betye Saar, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy, and John Outterbridge, among many others, in a time when white, male art was prevalent. Davis’ appreciation and promotion of Black artists and cultural references collected on trips all over the world are often referenced in his own work.

#alonzodavis

Monsur Awotunde

is in the newest New American Paintings (161). His work is similar to that of Mark Bradford or BR Goldstein in the sense that it is a collection of detritus which maintains much of its cultural significance.

#monsurawotunde