Jamele Wright Sr.

Multidisciplinary artist Jamele Wright Sr. creates vibrant, richly tactile abstractions that center around the Black American vernacular experience. Using found objects, Georgia red clay and Dutch wax cloth, Wright collects and transforms these evocative materials to create what he describes as “a conversation between family, tradition, the spiritual and material relationship between Africa and the South.” He has cited Hip Hop music as a foundational influence, for the way in which its artists gather and re-contextualize diverse cultural influences through sampling. Similarly, Wright remixes his fabrics and found materials to piece together complex narratives about the African diaspora.

Born in Ohio in 1970, Wright relocated to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 22. Working as a producer of art, jazz and poetry events, he recognized a lack of representation for young and emerging artists. Wright started his own gallery, Neo-Renaissance Art House, and was soon inspired to pursue his own artistic career. He graduated from Georgia State University with a BA in art history before obtaining his MFA from New York’s School of Visual Arts. In 2017, Wright began his important “In Transit” series, inspired by the Great Migration.

He currently lives and works in Atlanta, where he is represented by September Gray Fine Art. In May of this year, Wright’s first solo museum exhibition will open at The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC.