Aristotle Forrester
Bio: Aristotle Forrester is a black painter and printmaker, originally from the South Side of Chicago and currently based in New York. He received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2016, and is a Master of Fine Art candidate and Neiman Fellow at Columbia University. He has recently exhibited his work at venues such as Thierry Goldberg (New York), Frederic Snitzer (Miami), Storage Gallery (New York), M Fine Arts Galerie (Boston), the Inside Out Museum (Beijing), the Obama Foundation Democracy Forum (New York) and was collected by Harvard University (Boston) in 2022.
Instagram: @aristotles_abstractions_
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: This body of work, Edicts of Blood and Water, visualizes the racial constructs and power structures that have defined Forrester’s experience and that of so many people of color living in America. In these paintings, he deploys the motifs of blood, water and land, elements that sustain human life yet have also been manipulated by those in power to shackle, oppress and subjugate. By extending the traditions of quilting, collage, pigment, and text in these pieces, Forrester subverts the colonial pillars of visual culture and highlights the duality of imprisonment and freedom personified by these symbols. This transition across these paintings embodies the conflict and calmness of conquest, tying together the concept of the origins of colonialism. It starts with an edict: go here, get them, bring them there.
Over the course of the works, as over the course of time, the states of complexity of that edict are illuminated and unraveled, the tension of the marks presents the conflict, the loss, and the radical perseverance of oppression.
Aristotle Forrester
Manifest, 2024
Oil, hand ground pigment, lock ash, beeswax, burlap, silk, hemp, herringbone cotton, and marker collage on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
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Trade Routes and Bloodlines, 2024
Oil, hand ground pigment, lock ash, beeswax, burlap, silk, hemp, herringbone cotton, and marker collage on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
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Concerning Violence, 2024
Oil, hand ground pigment, lock ash, beeswax, burlap, silk, hemp, herringbone cotton, and marker collage on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
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The Comedy of Self Assurance, 2024
Oil, hand ground pigment, lock ash, beeswax, burlap, silk, hemp, herringbone cotton, and marker collage on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
First Year Exhibition
Aristotle Forrester
Dismantled Essay, 2023
Hair ash pigment, oil paint, intaglio, screen print on canvas
58" x 52" x 1"
Courtesy the artist
