Ohio Artist goes “back and forth in history”

Columbus, Ohio, artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (b. 1940) has been creating sumptuous mixed media paintings and sculptures for more than half a century. These document the stories she has gleaned from her elders, her travels throughout the world and her study of African and African American history. Her recent series of rag paintings entitled Along Water Street is based on the stores her Uncle Alvin told her as she was growing up and on old maps of Ohio she studied at the library. The artist describes the series as “going back and forth in history” with references to early Native American and African inhabitants who may have populated the Americas hundreds of years ago.

Along Water Street is on view at the Akron Art Museum through April 5, 2009