On view through May 23, 2025
Upcoming Events: Curator Talk on April 4 | Artist Talk on May 1
Since the 1970s, Seitu K. Jones has traveled through West Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States learning and documenting boat building practices. For Jones, boats are powerful vessels for aesthetic experimentation, environmental activism, and public engagement.
Drawing on folk traditions closely tied with Blues music, Jones uses the practice of call and response to create works of art that are sources of community pride. Whether muddy, stormy, or troubled waters, Jones deftly navigates rising tides and eroding shorelines, modeling respect and love for our natural resources.
Channeling Blacks & Blues features sculpture, paintings, photographs, drawings and archival objects that trace Jones’s decades-long study of Black boat culture, with a focus on the aesthetics of Blues that shape his practice.
Guest Curators: Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski and Alexandra Nicome
Image: Seitu K. Jones, She Can See Freedom (Tribute to Hughie Lee-Smith), 1985, acrylic on masonite
About the Artist
Seitu Ken Jones (b. 1951) is a Saint Paul, Minnesota based artist whose interdisciplinary practice works to restore our Beloved communities by blending art, food, conversation and beauty. Working on his own or in collaboration, Jones has created over 40 large-scale public art works.
He’s been awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, a Bush Artist Fellowship, a Bush Leadership Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts - Theater Communication Group Designer Fellowship. Seitu was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and was the Artist-in-Residence in the Harvard Ceramics Program. He was Millennium Artist-in-Residence for 651 Arts in Brooklyn, NY, and was the first Artist-in-Residence for the City of Minneapolis. In 2014, he integrated artwork into three key stations for the Greenline Light Rail Transit in the Twin Cities. A 2013 Joyce Award, from Chicago’s Joyce Foundation allowed Seitu to develop CREATE: the Community Meal, a dinner for 2,000 people at a table a half a mile long. The project focused on access to healthy food and community conversation. Beyond art making, Seitu worked with members of his neighborhood to create Frogtown Farm, a 5-acre farm in the heart of the City of Saint Paul.
He is the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Artist Award from the McKnight Foundation. His 2017 HeARTside Community Meal in Grand Rapids, MI was awarded the Grand Juried Prize for ArtPrize Nine. A retired faculty member of Goddard College in Port Townsend, WA. Seitu has a BS in Landscape Design and an MLS in Environmental History from the University of Minnesota.