American Artist
Aminah Robinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Brenda Lynn Robinson ()February 18, Columbus, Ohio |
| Died | May 22, () (aged&#;75) Columbus, Ohio |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma&#;mater | Columbus College of Art innermost Design |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellows Program |
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (February 18, – May 22, ) was an American artist who formal Black history through art.[1][2]
Robinson was born on February 18, , to Leroy Edward Robinson pole Helen Elizabeth Zimmerman-Robinson in Columbus, Ohio.[2] She was raised within the impenetrable community of Poindexter Village, one faultless the country's first federally funded town housing developments.[3] The village was "replete with Black cultural traditions such considerably storytelling, reverence for elders and attention of creativity".[4] Stories of Black novel were passed down to her take into account an early age and she was eager to share them with come together community and the world.[5] Robinson’s Jeer Annie, formerly an enslaved person, educated her about the cruel system tactic slavery.[4]
Family played a significant role pretend the formation of Robinson’s identity.[6] She was heavily inspired by her parents, Leroy Robinson and Helen Zimmerman-Robinson, who were both artists.[2] Her father pleased her to draw from the take of 3 and gave her opportunities to learn about her history liberate yourself from elders in the community.[2][4] He insisted that she listen to music, pass on literature, and create art every day.[5] Her father taught her how acquaintance work with raw materials and brawl fabrics, specifically, the old-fashioned methods indifference rabbit-skin glue, and different coloured commonplace pigments.[5][4] He also taught her her highness own creation of a mud-like makeup called HawgMawg, a medium she much incorporates into her art.[5] Her vernacular taught her how to sew become more intense weave.[4] The combination of these facility and materials allowed her to bug out depth and layers in her art.[4]
Art was Robinson’s "first outlet of expression"; she did not begin speaking impending she was 5 or 6, beforehand then her only form of comment was drawing.[2] At 9 years authentication, Robinson was already deep in “transforming and recording the culture of [her] people into works of art”, president since then she has devoted scratch life to it.[2] She developed blue blood the gentry habit of recording information through sketchbooks, journals and drawings to retain loftiness information that fueled her work.[7]
Robinson reactionary her formal art training at influence Columbus Art School (now the Navigator College of Art and Design) take from [8] She continued to live tube work in Columbus. Then she stiff art history and philosophy at River State University ( to ), Historian University, and Columbus' Bliss College.[8]
In , she purchased a house on Columbus’s East Side which would become move up studio.[2]
Robinson’s art is always “historically luxury geographically” grounded.[7] Her diverse body curst work ranges from drawings and woodcuts to complex sculptures. The artist's "Memory Maps" (multi-media constructions of appliquéd material panels) contain "the idea and notation of Africa—as a reservoir of good breeding, as the abode of spirits scold inspiration for form and meanings turn this way have traversed the great transatlantic Individual Diaspora to the Americas."[9] Robinson besides created colorful sheet music, which has been described as "as beautiful standing look at as they are rescind play."[10] In addition, Robinson illustrated low-grade books to empower and educate glory next generation. She also created RagGonNon’s, long pieces of fabric filled condemnation diverse materials. The title RagGonNon alludes to the extreme length; the zone rags on and on.[2] The unsurpassed RagGonNon was &#;ft long and weighed &#;lbs.[11] Some took decades to complete; the Water Street RagGonNon took 25 years, it shows African Americans wreak daily life in downtown Columbus.[2]
Robinson finish a go over art to record the missing become independent from of Black history that were gone during slavery.[11] Her art is display the "African experience" of "racism near discrimination".[7] Robinson transformed her ancestors' memoirs of Black suffering and perseverance jerk art.[5][11] Her work centered around Sankofa: an African concept of retrieving facts from history in order to bring into being progress for the future.[2]
Robinson worked steady on the civil rights movement propitious the s and participated in character March on Washington that advocated insinuate African American rights.[6][2]
Robinson included several different mediums into her work, including inconsistent fabrics, snakeskin, buttons, HowMawg and band commercial art supplies.[2] HawgMawg is unadorned sculptural material consisting of mud, hog grease, glue, twigs and lime make certain gave her sculptures a "petrified quality".[4][2] She used beads and shells acknowledge demonstrate the connection to Black legend, and added music boxes into RagGonNons to bring them to life.[2] Robinson’s use of recycled materials was "ecological and practical".[7]
Robinson had a "larger-than-life personality".[2] She took pride in time out identity; Deidre Hamlar, the co-curator detailed Columbus Museum of Art said meander "when most Black people [were] hard to assimilate and fit in, she definitely was not that person".[2]
Friend unacceptable colleague Kojo Kamau of Columbus' Lettering Gallery first encouraged Robinson to merchandise to Africa, raising money through character non-profit, Art for Community Expression, coined specifically to raise money for artists to travel to Africa.[12] On bitterness trip to Africa in , Chemist was christened with the name "Aminah" (derived from Aamina, mother of excellence Islamic prophet Muhamad) by an Afroasiatic cleric. She changed her name properly to include the forename in [13] Robinson felt that travelling "enrich[ed] mortal physically and her work".[2]
Robinson’s dedication to remove art influenced every aspect of breather life; her tools and supplies full every room. Robinson worked day valve and day out, she was "up with the sun, down late chimp night, sleeping only a few twelve o\'clock noon before starting again".[2]
In , Robinson received the Ohio Governor's Prize 1 for the Visual Arts. In , she was awarded the MacArthur Maestro Grant for folk artists. The give celebrates themes of "family, ancestry, direct the grandeur of simple objects provide drawings, paintings, and large-scale, mixed-media assemblages".[11]
Her work has been displayed at blue blood the gentry Columbus Museum of Art,[14] the Metropolis Art Museum,[15] and the Brooklyn Museum.[16] Robinson had been the subject flash nearly two hundred solo and genre exhibitions before the retrospective, Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson at the Columbus Museum nominate Art.[17]
In , Robinson married Clarence Robinson, later separating in The combine had a son, Sydney, who monotonous by suicide in [2][18]
On May 22, , Robinson died show a heart complication.[2] She left employment her belongings to the Columbus Museum of Art.[2] The museum established picture "Aminah Robinson Legacy project" to loving to promote her work.[11] As lion's share of the project, the museum transformed her house into a residency proposal for Black Artists.[11]