Passage Painting

I am making paintings that psychologically de-construct the Diaspora for me producing healing imagery that is frenetic yet quiet and filled with movement and energy. The support may consists of many colors, heavy impasto , multiple and overlapping images and sometimes found and created objects organized in such a way as to imply ritual and spirituality. Color and brush stroke create passages throughout the surface and composition to lead the eye around and through the painting establishing a visual dialogue with the viewer about culture and spirituality. Often psychological content may be established via the organization of splotches of color, geometric shapes or designs, which I refer to as ‘cultural chips’, (these chips are condensed archetypes that are historical, sometimes personal but always universal), line and organization of the support and surface. The figure, be it human or not, creates an open dialogue about faith, spirituality and emotion. Currently I am working on “History Paintings” that address the lost culture of African Americans. I am attempting to recover culture through DNA memories embedded in the physiology of the human soul. Newton an African American artist has painted professionally for over 55 years having received a BA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a MFA from Old Dominion and Norfolk State Universities. He has exhibited in London, Cortona Italy, New York, and throughout the Southeastern United States. His works hang in private collections all over the world and is included in several public collections including The Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art, the College of Saint Elizabeth, the University of Georgia, The North Carolina Zoo, The Lee Moffit Center in Charlotte, NC, the Norfolk Zoo in Norfolk Virginia and the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN. In 2012 he founded SPLASH a non-profit free art school for underprivileged at risk youth in Chattanooga, TN. Awards: Visual Artist Fellowship;Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga, Graduate Fellowship;Old Dominion University, (1995),"Premio Di Cortona" Assistantship; Univ. Of Georgia Studies Abroad, Cortona, Italy, NC, Integon. (First African American chosen in 30 yrs.), WS, NC, Movie Jungle Fever, Spike Lee, Article and reviews include: New York Times, London Chronicle, Chattanooga Times,Hampton News, Winston Salem Journal