Jamele Wright Sr. Born in Ohio. Graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in Art History and has a Masters of FIne Art from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
His work is concerned with the Black American vernacular experience. The work entails collecting found materials, Georgia red clay, and Dutch Wax cloth, by creating a conversation between family, tradition, the spiritual and material relationship between Africa and the South. My process is influenced by the way Hip Hop gathers different cultures through sampling and is charged with energy channeled and passed through the Pan African lineage. The work is inspired by the Great Migration of Black Americans who left the familiar in the hope of something better. Along with the fabric, their is diversity of the paints applied to the surface. House paint, spray paint and the red Georgia clay are as important as the more traditional acrylics. This democracy of materials is crucial to the work that honors the resourcefulness of African Americans. House paint this is not the right shade ends up in a corner of rejects. Mining through a stack of paint cans, I search for that thick odd color. Something that was unwanted, now is able to bring a patch of color and texture to an object that was otherwise flat. Wax Cloth is still visible, equal to the paint and other materials and added to the surface. Pouches are not greater than the knots, glyphs not greater than the clay. They are seen together as a whole and still maintain their individuality. Draping the fabric is a mechanism that infuses ephemerality, while creating shape, and allows movement, inviting the viewer on a journey
