Jordan Seaberry
Most narratives around people like my grandfather say the Great Migration was set in motion by Black families emigrating North in search of jobs. But my grandfather wasn’t running to anything, he was running from the state-sanctioned terror that defined his hometown in Mississippi. My grandfather never told me about the night he escaped— there was a shame in it, even in its survival As an artist, I believe that silence can build a legacy. But telling the truth does too. As an artist and organizer, I make paintings and policies in equal measure. I’ve been lucky to help fight for some meaningful change. It’s my hope that my painting lives right alongside my political work- two woven threads. Like politics, my painting process is a confounding one. I approach each piece as “call-and-response,” wherein each element calls for an answer- a subtraction, addition, reboot. Paintings take months, often years to complete, with many “finished” layers hidden underneath. For me, each painting’s meaning is found within the lifetime of its creation, on the canvas itself. They move as social movements do: evolving in real time, bound by the edges of the canvas, but free to grow within those bumpers. I believe in painting. I also know it’s been weaponized to reinforce narratives of colonialism, modalities of patriarchy and hierarchy, and that it can be a tool to devalue other artmaking forms, especially those traditionally championed by women. To me, painting becomes the best position to attack those notions. I want to paint in a way that builds power. In times of injustice, artists are the griot, historian, architect, activist. I don’t see a moment of my work— political or artistic— without my grandfather’s voice in it.
Jordan Seaberry is a painter, organizer, legislative advocate and educator. Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, he came to Providence to attend Rhode Island School of Design, and later, Roger Williams University School of Law. Alongside his art, he built a career as a grassroots organizer and legislative advocate, helping to pass multiple criminal justice reform milestones, including probation reform, the Unshackling Pregnant Prisoners Bill, and the statewide Community-Police Relationship Act. Seaberry serves as Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, and as a professor at Rhode Island School of Design. He previously served as the Director of Public Policy at the Nonviolence Institute, as the Community Leader Fellow at Roger Williams University School of Law, and as the Chairman of the Providence Board of Canvassers, overseeing the city’s elections. He has served as artist in residence at Skowhegan, Yaddo, the Verge Center of the Arts, and elsewhere. His work is in collections including the RISD Museum, the Crystal Bridges Museum, the deCordova Museum, and others. Seaberry maintains a studio in Providence.
@JordanSeaberry