Imo Nse Imeh
Imo Nse Imeh is a visual artist and scholar of African Diaspora art, whose work considers historical and philosophical issues around the Black body and cultural identity.
Imeh’s work has been exhibited in numerous public venues including the August Wilson African American Cultural Center (Pittsburgh, PA), the Fine Arts Center Galleries of Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio), the Sigal Museum of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society (Easton, Pennsylvania), the Mariposa Museum (Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts), University Museum of Contemporary Art (Amherst, Massachusetts), the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids, Michigan).
Imeh's art is held in the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art; in the museum collection of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; as well as in a number of private collections; and it has been featured by the PBS NewsHour, New England Public Media, Orion Magazine, and in the contemporary art and culture magazine Art New England. This year (2024) a series of Dr. Imeh’s works will appear on the covers of six issues of the medical journal Biological Psychiatry, edited by Dr. John Krystal of Yale University.
Imeh has been the recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship for his studio project Benediction, a Project Evolution Grant from the ValleyCreates Program of Mass MoCA and The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, a Holyoke Cultural Council Grant, and the Springfield Cultural Council Grant. He earned a BA from Columbia University in 2002 and PhD in the History of African Art from Yale University in 2009. He is Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Westfield State University in Massachusetts.
Parliament 2
First shown in Hope of Radiance, a solo exhibition at the Benedum Gallery of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, PA, Parliament 2 is one of a pair of works in which Imo Nse Imeh explores, perhaps in its most distilled form, the human figure and its doubles, specifically through the theme of angels. Throughout the history of art, angels (in various guises, and of various faiths) have been presented as having agency in human affairs, as overseers and caretakers, but also as avatars of human subjectivity and psychology. In Imeh's hands, angels are given very specific agency, as doubles of Black men, as entities who have fused with these figures to offer them moments of grace and transcendence.
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Selected Solo Exhibitions
2023 “The Hope of Radiance” August Wilson African American Cultural Center (AWAACC), Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
2022 “and i'll be there with you” Pulp Gallery, Holyoke Massachusetts
2020 “Ten Little Nigger Girls” Rush Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 “Suicide Girl and Her Nine Sisters” Western New England University Art Gallery, Springfield, MA
2019 “17 Years Boy: Epilogue” Readywipe Gallery, Holyoke, MA
2018 “17 Years Boy: Images” Sounds, and Words Inspired by the Life and Death of a Young Black Boy Time-based
Live Painting and Multimedia Installation, Catherine Dower Center for the Performing and Fine Arts, Westfield State
University, Westfield, MA
2018 “Forgotten Girls: Black Heroines on the Edge of Darkness and Hope” Von Auersperg Gallery, Deerfield, MA
2016 “Ten Little Nigger Girls” Arno Maris Gallery, Westfield State University, Westfield, MA
2016 “Ten Little Nigger Girls: Works-In-Progress Exhibition Art For The Soul Gallery, Springfield, MA
Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings
2021 “Visible Man: Art and Black Male Subjectivity” Fine Arts Center Galleries, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green, Ohio
2021 “Another American’s Autobiography: Selected Works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African
American Art” Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society’s Sigal Museum
2021 “Clarion Call: Poems and Paintings by Danny Simmons; Angels of 17 Years Boy by Imo Nse Imeh” Mariposa
Museum, Oaks Bluff, MA
2021 “We Are For Freedoms” University Museum of Contemporary Art, Umass Amherst, Amherst, MA
2020 “Noir, Noir: Meditations on African Cinema and its Influence on Visual Art” Prizm Art Fair
2019 “Breaching the Margins” Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
2013 “Dreamed My People Were Calling But I Couldn’t Find My Way Home” Rush Arts Gallery, NYC (Chelsea)
Selected Collections
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
University Museum of Contemporary Art University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Danny Simmons Collection of Art