Johnny Coleman
Blackbird: For a Brown Baby Boy
Photos, sculptural installation, and sound
About the Exhibit
My work is centered upon themes of the crossroads: a focal point/ threshold of challenge and transformation. For the last thirty years I have been composing spaces activated as prayers: requests for guidance, conscious statements of intent, and thanksgiving. For me, to speak from one's own experience is to empower one's self-creation. Memory, observation, and imagination are resources that I draw upon: images emerge from within the day to day. My process involves marking materials and spaces with time spent: working, writing, and speaking through the voices that form and inform me. I bind layered narrative passages together with functional and symbolic references to personal, and cultural history. I am working in a sculptural format that integrates the dramatic presentation of a stage set, with the oral tradition of storytelling, while consciously focusing upon private spaces that sometimes exist in the absence of a performer.
I carefully select materials that function as witnesses: recovered old growth wood, unprocessed bees wax, stone, reclaimed fabric; and call upon them as a sentient witness and reminder of the resilience of those who came before me.
Location
Law Building, Suite 161
163 King James Way, Akron, OH, 44308
About the Artist
Johnny Coleman has created sound installations for arts institutions throughout the U.S. including the following: Fort Wayne Museum of Art, N'Namdi Contemporary Center for the Arts (Detroit), The Sculpture Center (Cleveland), MOCA Cleveland, Akron Art Museum, SPACES Gallery (Cleveland), Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego), Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, El Centro Cultural (San Diego, CA), Randolph Street (Chicago, Ill), California Center for the Arts (Escondido, CA), Hall Walls (Bualo, NY), William King Museum of Art (Abington, VA), University of Northern Iowa, Wooster Art Museum (Wooster, OH), and David Zapf Gallery (San Diego, CA). Over the last thirty years, he has worked collaboratively with a range of poets, musicians, dancers, and visual artists across the United States. Additionally, he has performed on stage at BAM, Majestic Theater: Next Wave Festival '96, and his work is included in the permanent collections of the following: Fort Wayne Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, The California Center for the Arts, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, and extensive private collections.
Johnny Coleman holds a joint appointment in the departments of Art and African American Studies at Oberlin College. Research interests include the African roots of the banjo, furniture design, and the maroon communities of the Great Dismal Swamp.
