Aye Aton: Abstraction According to Aton
Emroy University, KY
10 March - 24 May 2023
Ayé A. Aton’s abstractions are a catapult into a galactic world, a space between what we might recognize and what we could only begin to dream of. A collection of previously unseen works that he painted in the last 20 years of his life, Abstraction According to Aton depicts bursting cosmic forces, metallic swirls, and hints of eyes and cheekbones that emerge from geometric collisions. Using acrylic across paper and canvas board, Aton fuses recurring symbols to form a pop-psychedelic mirage of nature, stars, landscapes, and galactic motifs. Melding the new worlds of emerging technologies and African antiquity, the works feature a strikingly bright color palette, a flurry of fluorescent and metallic contours which were pigments newly available in the early 1960’s. Aton was drawn to the possibilities of what was now available, and employed them heavily during his artistic practice.
Prior to adopting canvas and paper as his primary medium, Aton was laying the seminal threads of what would become Chicago’s 1980s muralist movement, painting across walls in private homes and on building exteriors on the South Side. To date, some of Aton’s most captured and reproduced murals were painted in the home he shared with his bandmates of the Sun Ra Arkestra in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. He spent years playing as the drummer and percussionist alongside jazz icon Sun Ra, his mentor whom he had drawn significant artistic and philosophical influence from since their first meeting during a phone call in the mid 1960s. With Ra’s guidance and affection, Aton was pushed towards a thematic assemblage of Ancient Egyptian iconography and science-fiction, which would go on to define his style. Despite never explicitly acknowledging the title, Sun Ra and Ayé Aton’s unique visual and sonic languages became largely associated with Afrofuturism, a political and artistic movement which imagines a future where African-descended peoples and their cultural creation play a central role.
Born as Robert Underwood, Ayé A. Aton, was born in January 1940 in Versailles, Kentucky. His extensive career as a muralist, painter, educator and musician generated undeniable influence in each sphere. Yet much of Aton’s legacy was clouded by the commercial success of the Sun Ra Arkestra, and many of his works were not properly documented or dated. Abstractions According to Aton is a rare window into his metaphysical dimension. Aton has also had solo exhibitions take place at The Lexington Living Arts and Science Center, Lexington, KY, the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center, Midway, KY, both in 2021, and earlier in 2013 at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.
Emroy University, KY
10 March - 24 May 2023
Ayé A. Aton’s abstractions are a catapult into a galactic world, a space between what we might recognize and what we could only begin to dream of. A collection of previously unseen works that he painted in the last 20 years of his life, Abstraction According to Aton depicts bursting cosmic forces, metallic swirls, and hints of eyes and cheekbones that emerge from geometric collisions. Using acrylic across paper and canvas board, Aton fuses recurring symbols to form a pop-psychedelic mirage of nature, stars, landscapes, and galactic motifs. Melding the new worlds of emerging technologies and African antiquity, the works feature a strikingly bright color palette, a flurry of fluorescent and metallic contours which were pigments newly available in the early 1960’s. Aton was drawn to the possibilities of what was now available, and employed them heavily during his artistic practice.
Prior to adopting canvas and paper as his primary medium, Aton was laying the seminal threads of what would become Chicago’s 1980s muralist movement, painting across walls in private homes and on building exteriors on the South Side. To date, some of Aton’s most captured and reproduced murals were painted in the home he shared with his bandmates of the Sun Ra Arkestra in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. He spent years playing as the drummer and percussionist alongside jazz icon Sun Ra, his mentor whom he had drawn significant artistic and philosophical influence from since their first meeting during a phone call in the mid 1960s. With Ra’s guidance and affection, Aton was pushed towards a thematic assemblage of Ancient Egyptian iconography and science-fiction, which would go on to define his style. Despite never explicitly acknowledging the title, Sun Ra and Ayé Aton’s unique visual and sonic languages became largely associated with Afrofuturism, a political and artistic movement which imagines a future where African-descended peoples and their cultural creation play a central role.
Born as Robert Underwood, Ayé A. Aton, was born in January 1940 in Versailles, Kentucky. His extensive career as a muralist, painter, educator and musician generated undeniable influence in each sphere. Yet much of Aton’s legacy was clouded by the commercial success of the Sun Ra Arkestra, and many of his works were not properly documented or dated. Abstractions According to Aton is a rare window into his metaphysical dimension. Aton has also had solo exhibitions take place at The Lexington Living Arts and Science Center, Lexington, KY, the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center, Midway, KY, both in 2021, and earlier in 2013 at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.