May 6 – 29, 2027
Opening Reception: Friday, May 7, 2027
I use the techniques of machine quilting with applique’ to construct compositions in layered cotton fabric. The medium resembles quilted comforters, making it familiar and approachable. As such, I find it ideal for addressing provocative topics related to social
justice and inequality, which enables my having a voice for topical commentary.
Jo-Ann Morgan is Professor Emerita of African American Studies and Art History, Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL). She authored The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture (2019) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Visual Culture (2007), winner of the Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship in 2008. Prior to becoming a scholar of African American art and culture, Morgan received her MFA in 1989 from the University of Wyoming in Studio Art and remained active as a visual artist while a doctoral student at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles; PhD, 1997). After two decades of university teaching, in 2020 Morgan reestablished a full-time studio practice. Since then, her work has been shown in over twenty solo exhibitions at community art centers and at colleges and universities throughout the country. A retrospective selection of thirty artworks, titled “The Mourning After,” was mounted at the Franklin G. Burroughs and Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina in 2026.
Comments are closed.