MaPo Kinnord (born 1960 in Cleveland, OH) is an artist and educator based in
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
, Louisiana.
Early life and education
Kinnord grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She completed her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and received her MFA from
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
John T. Scott
John Tarrell Scott (June 30, 1940 – September 1, 2007) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, collagist, and MacArthur Fellow. The works of Scott meld abstraction with contemporary techniques infused with references to traditional Afri ...
.
Work
Using ceramic sculptural forms resembling mud huts of Ghana, Kinnord's work is about ancestral memory. She has spent time in Northern
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
creating a research video on pottery and ceramic architecture. Much of her work is inspired by
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
and explores both exteriors and interiors through clay and surface treatment. She has also compared the way she works with clay to jazz, improvisational but with structure.
Part of Kinnord's work as an educator includes
art therapy
Art therapy (not to be confused with ''arts therapy'', which includes other creative therapies such as drama therapy and music therapy) is a distinct discipline that incorporates creative methods of expression through visual art media. Art thera ...
manipulating clay with meditation. She was an instructor at Penland School of Crafts, in North Carolina, Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Maine. Kinnord taught in MassArt in Massachusetts and Berkeley California before moving to New Orleans in 1995 where she became Associate Professor of Art at
Xavier University of Louisiana
Xavier University of Louisiana (also known as XULA) is a Private university, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Roman Catholic, Catholic university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the only Catholic HBCU ...
.
Kinnord's work has been exhibited Internationally including at Arthur Roger Gallery, Tulane University, Baltimore Clayworks, Stella Jones Gallery,
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
, Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and Imago Mundi.
In 2017 her work was included in an exhibition called ''Congregation'' at Antenna Gallery. In 2018 Kinnord's work was included in ''The'' ''Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction'' at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art alongside works by
Lynda Benglis
Lynda Benglis (born October 25, 1941) is an American sculptor and visual artist known especially for her wax paintings and poured latex sculptures. She maintains residences in New York City, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Kastellorizo, Greece, and Ahmedaba ...
,
Dusti Bongé
Dusti Bongé (''née'' Eunice Lyle Swetman, 1903–1993) was an American painter who worked from the 1930s through the early 1990s. She is considered Mississippi's first Abstract expressionism, Abstract Expressionist painter and its first Modernism ...
,
Clyde Connell
Clyde Connell (September 19, 1901 – May 2, 1998) was an American self-taught abstract expressionist sculptor. Her works are known for reflecting the nature of Louisiana and the culture of Jim Crow South.
Life
Born as Minnie Clyde Dixon on a ...
Marie Hull
Marie Hull (September 28, 1890 - November 21, 1980) was an American painter. Her work was exhibited in the United States and Europe. In her home state of Mississippi, October 22, 1975, was designated as Marie Hull Day. Some of her paintings are in ...
,
Lin Emery
Lenore Emery (May 20, 1926 – March 11, 2021) was an American visual artist based in New Orleans. She is primarily known for her large-scale wind-powered kinetic sculpture and public artworks that are inspired by the forces of nature. Since 19 ...
,
Margaret Evangeline
Margaret Evangeline (born 1943 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a post-minimalist painter, video, Performance art, performance, and installation artist noted for her bullet-riddled paintings.
Life
Evangeline was born in Baton Rouge, LA, and lived in ...
Jacqueline Humphries
Jacqueline Humphries (born November 17, 1960, in New Orleans) is an American abstract painter. She is known for large-scale paintings that reference the history of abstraction, combining traditional painterly techniques with contemporary technolo ...
,
Valerie Jaudon
Valerie Jaudon (born August 6, 1945) is an American painter commonly associated with various Postminimal practices – the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, site-specific public art, and new tendencies in abstraction.
Life
Valerie ...