Tacoma Art Museum Presents the Work of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson

Tuesday, 31 October 2006 11:02

Tacoma, WA – Symphonic Poem: Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson features about ninety works that offer, in Robinson’s singular voice, a commentary on the lives, history, and spirituality of Africans in Africa as well as African-Americans in her native Columbus, Ohio.  Tacoma Art Museum is the only West-Coast venue for this nationally touring exhibition.  Symphonic Poem and will remain on view until January 28, 2007.

Robinson is well-known for the amazing variety and range of materials and techniques used in her work.  Her mother taught her needle- and button-work.  Her father taught her about “hogmawg,” a mixture of mud, pig grease, dyes, sticks, glue, and lime, that she regularly incorporates into her sculptural pieces.  Fabric, button-work, paint, ink, charcoal, clay, and found objects help her to create both two- and three-dimensional works that intentionally draw from folk and craft traditions.

In a review of the exhibition in the February 24, 2006 New York Times, arts critic Grace Glueck wrote.  “Ms. Robinson’s magic with materials and her compositional ingenuity draw you in.” 

In fact, that ingenuity and the artist’s significance were affirmed in 2004 when she received a MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as a “genius grant.”  She once described her subjects as “a reflection of bridges to cross — Africa, the Middle Passage, slavery, civil rights, the artists, the teachers, the heroes, and always the children looking to the future.”  She nurtures the sense of sankofa, an Akan word meaning that the past must be reclaimed in order for a culture to move forward.

A highly narrative artist, Robinson typically depicts stories of the preservation of shared history and its bearing on individual experience.  She has researched the lives of her ancestors, for example, in slavery on Sapelo Island, Georgia, and their migration to the community known as the Blackberry Patch in Columbus.  She preserves such scenes from African-American life and captures their spirit and sense of community in her work.

Barbara Johns is the Guest Resident Curator for the Tacoma presentation of Symphonic Poem.  She is also former Chief Curator of Tacoma Art Museum and is a consultant for the Northwest African American Museum.  Artist Barbara Earl Thomas, Deputy Director and Curator of the Northwest African American Museum, serves as Exhibition Programming Consultant for the Robinson exhibition.

Tacoma Art Museum connects people and builds community through art.  The museum serves the diverse communities of the region through its collection, exhibitions, and learning programs, emphasizing art and artists from the Northwest.  The museum’s five galleries display an array of top national shows, the best of Northwest art, creatively themed exhibitions, and historical retrospectives.  Visit : www.TacomaArtMuseum.org