Newsroom: Jared Thorne Awarded 2025 Aminah Robinson Fellowship
Columbus Museum of Art Honors and Stewards Aminah Robinson’s Legacy Project to Support Local Artists
COLUMBUS, Ohio — December 12, 2024 — The Columbus Museum of Art(CMA) in partnership with the Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) is pleased to announce that Jared Thorne (he/him) has been awarded the 2025 Aminah Robinson Artist Fellowship. Beginning on January 3, 2025, the artist will spend three months working in Robinson’s renovated Shepard neighborhood home studio, as well as receive an unrestricted $15,000 cash award and the opportunity to participate in a community outreach project with the Columbus Museum of Art. During his fellowship, Thorne will continue developing his diorama series, titled Black Palimpsest, expanding upon the work’s allegories and metaphors that speak to the Black experience in America and the African diaspora.
The Aminah Robinson Artist Fellowship supports artists residing in Franklin County in commemoration of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson’s resounding artistic legacy and her commitment to the preservation of community, culture, and history in Columbus, Ohio. This Fellowship is one of three programs for artists and writers which is organized within the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project, established by CMA in 2020 to honor Robinson’s vast creative contributions and further her multifaceted legacy.
Jared Thorne is a visual artist, photographer, and Assistant Professor currently teaching at the Art Department at The Ohio State University. Before joining the OSU faculty, Thorne held teaching positions at Stellensbosch Academy, the University of Cape Town, and City Varsity in South Africa, where he lived for five years. Thorne’s time in South Africa was greatly influential to his artistic practice, informed by new ideas centered on race, class, and knowledge production. These very ideas inform the heart of Thorne’s practice–to create a dialogue centered on Black identity, specifically how it relates to social class.
“I want to express my gratitude for being selected as an Aminah Robinson Fellow. Ms. Robinson’s exceptional reputation and legacy serves as a grounding force for all artists in Columbus,” said 2025 Aminah Robinson Fellow Jared Thorne. “It’s an honor to be associated with her legacy of storytelling and her commitment to the Black community. In these uncertain times it is refreshing to know that the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Columbus Museum of Art promote and give platforms to artists that address complex issues such as race, class, and subjectivity.”
Aminah Robinson’s expansive, multi-medium practice spanned drawings, paintings, sculpture, button-beaded dolls, music boxes, handmade books, illustrated journals, and poetry, reflecting the many mediums of her prolific storytelling and the rich scope of her enduring influence across the arts. Informed by the community of her childhood in Columbus, Ohio, and the universal stories of people of African descent, Robinson’s oeuvre celebrates and memorializes themes of family and ancestry, and the grandeur of simple objects and everyday tasks.
Following the artist’s passing in 2015, she bequeathed her art, writings, home studio, and personal property in trust to CMA, and the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project has subsequently been designed around three, ever-growing initiatives: documentation, preservation, and exhibitions of Robinson’s work; the renovation and support of her home studio; and artist fellowships and residencies supporting the next generation of African American artists, writers, researchers, and scholars. Robinson was adamant that she wanted her home maintained as a place for artists’ research, inspiration, and creativity, in support of local and African American artists and researchers. In addition to the Artist Fellowship and Residency Program, the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project annually supports a Writer/Scholar/Researcher Residency, respectively selected from local and national pools, who each similarly receive $15,000 cash awards and three-month residencies in Robinson’s home studio.
“As a celebrated artist and professor, Thorne’s dedication to his communities, craft, and storytelling echoes that of Aminah Robinson,” said Tom Katzenmeyer, president and CEO of the Greater Columbus Arts Council. “This fellowship is deeply meaningful for the community of Columbus, it is our great pleasure to partner with the Columbus Museum of Art in fostering local artists that craft narratives bridging generations, in honor of Aminah Robinson.”
Thorne was selected by an esteemed jury comprised of artists and scholars, including Jana Cardwell, 2024 Aminah Robinson Fellow; Vesta Daniel, Professor Emeritus OSU; Carol Manley, CMA Board Member; Tariq Tarey, GCAC Board Member; and Kevin Boyce, President of the Franklin County Commissioners.
About Jared Thorne
Jared Thorne’s works delves deeply into the complexities of Black identity and culture. By examining issues of race, social class, and gender, Thorne’s art challenges both dominant narratives and internalized perceptions within the Black community. His work prompts a rethinking of authenticity, representation, and historical context, asking viewers to reconsider their relationship to modernity and the constructs that shape societal norms.
Thorne’s recent exploration of the diasporic connections between America and Africa adds another layer of depth to his practice. This investigation highlights the transnational and historical dimensions of Black identity, creating a space for reflection on shared heritage, cultural exchange, and the ongoing effects of displacement and colonization. His art serves as a bridge, connecting personal and collective experiences while encouraging critical discourse on the past, present, and future of the African diaspora.
About Aminah Robinson
Known for works inspired by the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa, which means to retrieve the past, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson lived and worked in Columbus, Ohio creating sculpture, large multimedia works she called RagGonNons, paintings, drawings, prints, button-beaded dolls, handmade books and illustrated journals. She also published children’s books grounded in African American ancestral legacies.
When Robinson passed away in 2015, she left her estate to the Columbus Museum of Art. In 2020, the museum established the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project to increase awareness of her work and to place Robinson in the pantheon of the most important 20th- and 21st-century American artists where she deservedly belongs. To learn more about Aminah, you can visit our website.
About Columbus Museum of Art
CMA is where creativity and the daily life of its community intersect and thrive, as the museum champions new and different ways of thinking and doing. CMA celebrates the creative process and sets the stage for people to experience art, ideas and relationships that spark creativity and nurture collective, courageous imagination.
CMA’s collection includes outstanding late 19th- and early 20th-century American and European modern works of art, grounded in the Ferdinand Howald and the Howard D. and Babette L. Sirak Collections. The museum houses the world’s largest collections of works by beloved Columbus-connected artists Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Elijah Pierce and George Bellows and acclaimed collections such as The Photo League and the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art. The recently established Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art also continues CMA’s dedication to showcasing the art of our time.
The Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, Paul-Henri Bourguignon and Erika Bourguignon Fund for Visual Arts and Richard H. and Ann Shafer funds with the assistance of the Ingram-White Castle Foundation of The Columbus Foundation provide ongoing support.
About the Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Greater Columbus Arts Council champions and elevates the arts and cultural expression of Greater Columbus. www.gcac.org
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