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Kevin Cole 'When Blessing Follows you' (2020) Mixed Media. 43 x84x9 inches. In the Collection of ... [+] John and Barbara Knox, Elgin, Illinois.

Bold colors erupt in an array of painterly strokes, from splatters to precise lines to geometric and organic shapes, applied to a labyrinthine three-dimensional sculptural canvas. The viewers gaze engages in a vibrant visual journey celebrating abstraction and multi-media textures.

The title, When Blessing Follows you (2020), evokes solace and spirituality. But a painful history is told through the vivid colors and interconnected shapes, that upon closer inspection, reveal themselves as neckties. Artist Kevin Coles work elegantly and eloquently shares narratives of Black struggle and Black power, creatively fighting to expose this nations shameful history.

Neckties emerged as a deeply personal and political symbol in Coles work after a formative conversation with his grandfather.

When I graduated high school, I didn't want to register to vote. I kept telling him I didn't think it was going to count, because Im just one person, Cole recalled. He was 91 years old, and he kneeled down and drew me a map and told me to go to a certain area on his property. He took me to a tree where Black people were lynched by their neckties on their way to vote.

His grandfather made a persuasive argument that compelled 18-year-old Cole to begin a lifelong research journey that is woven into the dialogue of decades of artworks spanning themes from powerful Black women to his appreciation of music.

Cole began studying the lynchings of Black people by white mobs in Jefferson County, Arkansas, where his grandfather lived. The area and this nation have long been confronting their racist legacies. The Equal Justice Initiative created of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, honoring more than 4,400 Black people who were lynched, burned, mutilated, or brutally assaulted in the United States between 1883 and 1940. A necktie is likened to hangman's noose, a symbol long associated with lynching and racism.

Kevin Cole 'Ballot Box Series: Box of Many Colors' (2021) 10x14x8 inches Mixed Media. From the ... [+] collection of Brenda A. and Larry D. Thompson of Atlanta.

Born in Arkansas, Cole, now 60, earned a M.F.A in drawing from Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, a M.A. in art education and painting from the University of Illinois in Champaign, and aB.S. in art education from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and moved to Georgia where he has a studio in Fairburn, some 17 miles south of Atlanta. His mixed-media work appears in more than 3,600 prominent public, private, and corporate collections throughout the country. Hes won more than 66 art awards, 27 fellowships and grants, and 51 teaching awards. His work has been on view at 22 solo, group, juried, and invitational exhibitions since 1998.

Neckties are prevalent in Coles latest Gerrymandering series, which includes an array of large-scale works that amplify the charge for social justice. The ongoing series depicts the shapes of seven Southern states where Black votes are suppressed, each etched into aluminum with symbols and imagery, including neckties and scars, and dirt from that state adhered to the canvas. Seven works he calls Banners will be suspended from the ceiling to represent the swing states. Each Banner will hang nine-feet long and will be etched with necktie and scarf shapes to symbolize various court cases or information associated with each state. Cole also created life-size Poll Tax Ballot Box works, both monochromatic and brightly colored, as well as a series of smaller ballot boxes.

Some years ago, I introduced the concept of mapping as the foundation for pieces related to certain counties and certain Southern towns that were hotbeds of hate over the last century. This spawned further work on lynching with the series Tied Up in Politics, said Cole.

Kevin Cole 'Ballot Boxes Series Where Fate Lies' 2021 3046x24 inches Mixed Media

Cole an educator who serves as an Advanced Placement art consultant for the New York city-based College Board representing more than 6,000 of the world's leading colleges, schools, and other educational organizations extensively researches each state and its people before creating artworks.

I stumbled upon the work of several authors who focused on gerrymandering and how it has become the last firewall for those who would rather continue their indefensible dominance in society rather than abide by the rules they made up which gave power to the idea of one man, one vote, said Cole. Through gerrymandering, even though each man and woman has a vote, districts are so drawn that the balance of power still remains with those who have always been in power. This must continue to be addressed.

Coles wide-reaching academic sources include Freedom Is Not Enough: Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics, a 2007 book by Ronald W. Walters. The American author, speaker, and scholar of African-American politics who died in 2010, examined the 2000 electoral results and the potential impact of disenfranchised Black voters in Florida. Walters explored the effect that Jesse Jackson had on the Democratic party and the electorate in 1984 and 1988, and the influence that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton had on voters during the 2004 Democratic debates.

I've tried to get rid of the neckties and just move forward, but its a political statement that stays in there, just like a lot of my titles are positive titles. The reason they're positive titles is because we've come a long way, but we have so far to go. When you listen, when you look at someones work, you find the phases of human experiences. I listen to a lot of sermons, a lot of speeches, and that's where I get my titles from. And from music, because its a universal language.

Cole is particularly inspired by jazz and gospel music. His mother was devoted to the church and his grandmother owned a jazz club.

I've always listened to all types of music, depending on what I'm working on, said Cole, underscoring the complex processes, materials, and themes across his oeuvre.

Every medium I use has to do with the situation, said Cole. I started working with aluminum after September 11 (2001). I was supposed to be in New York with a friend looking at galleries, and (the attacks) happened the day before, so I decided I wouldn't go. An artist by the name of Bill Stevens sent me a picture of a little boy holding a piece of metal and tar paper which was some of the debris from the Twin Towers.

Kevin Cole 'Arkansas: Where Faith Meets Opportunities' (2020) I15x20 inches Mixed Media on paper

The rest is here:
Artist Kevin Cole Depicts Complexities Of The Black Experience Through Large-Scale Multi-Media Works That Re-Examine U.S. History - Forbes