About The Artist

Arlene Turner Crawford - Statement / Bio To me, art is ritual, an attempt to interpret higher expressions of life. As an image maker, my work is expressed through both realistic and symbolic forms. This is done in an attempt to inform the viewer of a cultural continuum. My images are created through the manipulation of form, design, color, collage and assemblage. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND MS.Ed Indiana University, Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, IN. 1977 University of Massachusetts, MFA candidate in studio painting & printmaking, Amherst, MA. 1972 B.S.Ed. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL. 1971 Selected Recent Project and Exhibitions “Sankofa for the Earth”, Collaborative Installation, co-artists: Dorian Sylvain & Raymond Thomas, Burnham Wildlife Corridor, 2016 “FREE AT FIRST: The Audacious Journey of AACM”, DuSable Museum of African American History, 2015 “AfriCOBRA: Art and Impact”, Curator, DuSable Museum of African American History, July 2013 Sapphire & Crystals Remember: Marva Pitchford Jolly, Southside Community Art Center, 2013 “State of Grace”, Sapphire & Crystals Group Show, Woman Made Gallery, 2012 “Ordinary Dissonance”, Curator Group Show, Addison Center for the Arts, 2012 “Renaissance Reloaded”, Black History Month Exhibition, Evanston Art Center Arlene has served on the Executive Board of the African American Arts Alliance, co-founded the Sutherland Community Arts Initiative and has been a participating artist since the inception of Sapphire & Crystals, a collective of African American women artists. She is an image-maker who works in the media of painting, assemblage/college, drawing, graphic design and illustration. Influences in her work have come from her family; AfriCOBRA artists; Black Classical Music (jazz); research and meditation. “I AM because We ARE”, was the hue and cry: a call to purpose within the Black Arts Movement. As a child of the ‘60s, I became enthralled with art because of the Black Arts Movement. It was a time when artists were the vanguard, actively in the cultural forefront. As an image-maker, you could choose to elevate your culture by providing a medium for our profoundness and our glory. The artists were continuing the traditions of our cultural humanity. I was fortunate enough to have met many of the movers and shakers of that era.