Kevin Cole: Soul Ties
Cole is the winner of the Georgia Museum of Art’s Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award for 2020. Born in Arkansas and based in Atlanta, this award-winning artist and educator brings these visual “soul” ties to life through a variety of media, finding additional inspiration in African American religious and musical traditions. This year’s national Black History Month theme centers on African Americans and the vote, and Cole’s works, inspired by personal as well as collective history, serve as a powerful testimony to the joys and struggles of both past and present in the pursuit of civil rights.
For more than 30 years, artist Kevin Cole has created vibrant and colorful abstract forms that communicate the struggles and aspirations of the African American experience. The Atlanta-based artist and educator creates painted mixed-media constructions in wood, aluminum and paper that serve as a testimony to the depths of the human spirit.
One of six children, Kevin Earlee Cole was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1960 to Sam and Jessie Mae Cole, a mortician and a cafeteria worker. His formal art training began at the University of Arkansas, where he studied under teachers such as Henri Linton, John Howard, Earnest Davidson and Tarrance Corbin. After earning an undergraduate degree in art education, Cole received a master’s degree in painting and art education from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, followed by a master of fine arts degree in drawing from Northern Illinois University. He accepted his first job in 1985 as an art teacher at Camp Creek Middle School, beginning a long career in the Atlanta public school system.
Cole’s examination of color shows his passion for artistic experimentation and deep appreciation for cultural heritage. He absorbed the color theories of Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann while a student, particularly Hofmann’s focus on color’s ability to convey three-dimensional space. Cole’s memories of the quilts his mother and grandmother made found a kinship with African diasporic traditions in textile weaving and music. A member of the artist collective AfriCOBRA, Cole exhibits “expressive awesomeness” and luminosity (or “shine”), two tenets of the group’s artistic philosophy. The explosive curvilinear forms in Cole’s compositions come from the most salient motif in his work: neckties.
Cole’s grandfather inspired this motif through an important lesson about the sacrifices made by those who lived during the Jim Crow era. When Cole turned 18, his grandfather took him to a tree where African American men had been lynched by their neckties on their way to vote. This convinced Cole that his vote was valuable, not only for his own future but to continue the legacy shaped by his ancestors. For Cole, the neckties are a foundational aspect of his work, channeling memories of struggle and pain but also personal triumph to inspire hope and change through his art. “Seeking Blessing I” and “Faith N Determination,” for example (both in the slideshow below), recall life challenges punctuated by personal and collective tragedies with a note of optimism from faith or conviction. Music, both sacred and secular, influences many of Cole’s works. “Spiritual Celebration with Miles, Dizzy and Coltrane” refers to the rich history of African American music, highlighting the riffs and improvisation found in jazz, gospel, funk and hip hop through using alternating tensions of color and line in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional form.
Cole has maintained an active career as an educator and studio artist, completing multiple commissions and attracting prominent collectors. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of many prominent museums to collect his work. He has completed over 35 public art commissions, including the Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Mural for the 1996 Olympic Games and “Soul Ties That Matter,” a 55-foot-long installation created for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2018. Named Georgia State Artist of the Year in 1996, he has left an indelible imprint on his adopted state.
Click and drag in the photo below to see a 360° view of the installed exhibition.
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