Kai Kambel

Fortunate to enter elementary school during an era of progressive school arts education, I have always been interested in culture and the performing arts. My unquenchable curiosity regarding the visual arts started in the primary grades, reading comic books and books about the visual arts, artists, and art history to support my early experimentations using sculpture, drawing and painting media.

Understanding and creating images, icons and illustrations have become my life’s work. My love of research and experimentation continues to energize my need to create art. I have come to agree with my teachers and mentors, especially Eva Hamlin Miller, Samella Lewis, and John Biggers who emphasized the authenticity of creating from my own experience and are my direct link to the Harlem Renaissance. Believing art to be a way of life, Miller, Lewis, Biggers and their contemporaries such as Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Arthur Rose and Charles White embraced the Harlem Renaissance ideas of nationalism, cultural consciousness, and preservation that were advocated by leaders and scholars such as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Dubois, and Dr. Alain Locke, a well known scholar of this era who specifically addressed African American artists, urgin...

Education
1995 Ph. D. American Culture; Bowling Green State University; Bowling Green, Ohio 43403
1978 M F A. Painting and Graphics; Bowling Green State University; Bowling Green, Ohio 43403
1975 MA. Painting and Art History; Bowling Green State University; Bowling Green, Ohio 43403
1972 B S. Fine Arts Design; North Carolina Agriculture & Technical Univ.; Greensboro, NC 27411

EXHIBITIONS, COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS*

1996 Founder’s Day Show, The African American Atelier, Greensboro Cultural Arts Center, Greensboro, North Carolina.
1993 World Order: Visions of Emerging Realities, Dittmar Memorial Gallery, Norris University Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
1992 Savannah College of Art and Design Faculty Show, Gallery One, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia.
1992 Afrikan Ritual Expressions: American Afrikana Art by Kai Kambel, The African American Atelier Art Gallery, Greensboro Cultural Center, Greensboro, North Carolina.
1991 Floreant Humanimalia: Art by Heinrich, Buscomb, Kambel and Sardis, Dittmar Memorial Gallery, Norris University Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
1990 Kai Kambel: American Afrikan Ritual Artist, Spartanburg Arts Council, and Spartanburg,
South Carolina.
1988 Kai Kambel: An Afrikan American Artist, Ohio State University at Lima, Lima, Ohio.
1987 Kai Kambel: Art Afrikana Americas (Art Exhibition and slide presentation), Ohio State University at Lima, Lima, Ohio.
1983 Kai Kambel: Afrikan American Ritual Art, O’Kane Gallery, University of Houston Downtown, Houston, Texas.
1983 Perceptions: The Black Female Art Exp...