Adam Cohen is pleased to present Jamel Robinson’s solo exhibition:
The SCREAM Paintings
The exhibition will be on view at A Hug From The Art World’s new space from January 20th through March 6th, 2022, at 515 West 19th Street, New York, NY, 10011.
The current and historical silence of the black voice in America is under the menace of authority held unaccountable to itself.
“One day I wandered down to the World Trade Memorial site during a walk and sat on a concrete block to write. A woman entered the area with two brown children that were hopping from block to block. A white security guard approached to tell them to stop but his tone and physical demeanor were far too aggressive to be speaking to a woman and two children, but it flew just under the radar, so I didn’t say anything despite wanting to. I just stared at him. When the family walked away, he came up to me and asked if I had a problem because he saw me speaking to the woman and her kids. He knew what he was doing then, and I knew what he was trying to do with me: abuse what he perceived as power of authority over someone who didn’t have any. I almost engaged him but toed the line. There were real police all around us and I knew that if I allowed myself to get angry or show aggression, it could cost me my time, my freedom or even my life. And he knew that. And America knows that. And black people in America know this. He said that “if I needed anything, he’d be right over here until 5PM” and I thanked him for letting me know, dove further into some writing and picked up the phone to make a call as I walked away. I wanted to scream.
In the summer of 2021, during a ten-day residency at The 8th House in Vermont, I was chopping into a log and watching its center split in two until it formed what looked like a mouth. I turned the wood into a sculpture and that gave me the inspiration for making The Scream Paintings. Using oil stick on paper I began making self-portraits, when it came up that those works looked inspired by another artist, I set out to abstract them further using my squeegee tool to block out the faces, oscillating between figuration and abstraction.
I set out to make a series of works that served as my scream. In order to do that I had to turn my studio into a factory and work day and night for several weeks in the way I imagined Andy Warhol toiling away at bodies work with silkscreen but instead with oil stick. I, my body itself, acting as the machinal component.
The SCREAM paintings are the space between circumstance and breakthrough. They are the roar of the Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.”
- Jamel Robinson
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jamel Robinson is an autodidactic interdisciplinary artist, working in the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, the written word, and performance. His work ponders itself alongside maker and audience while serving as a timestamp of the experiences shaping his life and creative practice.
Robinson’s works have gained him notoriety at home and abroad, and his work is included in several world’s leading private collections.
Jamel has most recently been celebrated by the New York Times and CBS News for his “Beauty from Ashes,” solo exhibition and teaching artist residency at the Hudson River Museum in New York. The body of work was curated in response to “African American Art in the 20th Century,” the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s traveling exhibition of select permanent works which opened at the Hudson River Museum at the start of Robinson’s residency in the fall of 2021.
Robinson lives and works in Harlem, New York City where he was born and raised.