Marcia Jones (born circa 1972 in Chicago Illinois) is an American professor and contemporary artist, known for her multimedia and large-scale installation works.

Early life and education

Jones was born premature at Chicago's Little Company of Mary Hospital to Paul Davis and Christine Jones. After moving many times with her mother, she spent her high school years in Los Angeles, CA at Marshall High School. Jones majored in Fashion Design at

Clark Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Found ...

where she later taught and moved to New York in 1995 after being inspired by artists like

Radcliffe Bailey Radcliffe Bailey (born 1968) is a contemporary American artist noted for mixed-media, paint, and sculpture works that explore African-American history. He is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. Early life and education Radcliffe Bailey was born ...

to pursue fine art. She studied under

Juan Logan Juan Logan (born August 16, 1946) is an American artist from Nashville, Tennessee. His paintings, sculptures, and installations are reflective of his experiences of racial and institutional power structures in the South and prompt viewers to cons ...

Kojo Griffin
Susan Page and

Cora Cohen Cora Cohen (born October 19, 1943) is an American artist whose works include paintings, drawings, photographs, and altered radiography, x rays. Cohen is most known for her abstract paintings and is often identified as continuing the tradition of ...

UNC Greensboro The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG or UNC Greensboro) is a public research university in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina system. UNCG, like all members of the UNC system, is a stand-al ...

to earn her MFA in visual arts in 2004.

Career

Jones moved to New York in 1995 to pursue fashion design and worked for Harriette Cole before finding her calling as a fine artist. She was a kinetic (performance) painter, painting to live music on stage, with the Brooklyn Bohemian scene at venues such as the Brooklyn Moon Cafe that incubated the beginnings of careers such as Mos Def,

Common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

Saul Williams Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and actor. He is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop, and for his lead roles in the 1998 independent film ''Slam'' ...

, Erykah Badu, Kevin Powell, and Sarah Jones. Her work appears as the cover art for Saul Williams' book,
The Seventh Octave
' and his album, '' Amethyst Rock Star'', and she collaborated with him on his book
''S/HE''
Jones' work was featured on numerous book covers and has exhibited at the

New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is a multimedia contemporary art gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. SECCA has no permanent collection but offers exhibitions of works by artists with regional, national, and internation ...

Rush Arts Gallery
an
The 18th street Art Center
Weatherspoon Art Museum
The Greensboro Artist LeagueNew Image Art Gallery
and Spelman College. She was a Professor of Art at Clark Atlanta University 2004-2009 Jones' work explores personal identity, sexuality, history and the female paradigm. Her exhibition at the

Harvey B. Gantt Center The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, formerly known as the Afro-American Cultural Center, is in Charlotte, North Carolina and named for Harvey Gantt, the city's first African-American mayor and the first African-American ...

explored the dichotomy of the virgin and the whore through an

analogy Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ( ...

with Haitian Voodoo motifs and Magic City

strip club A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other Erotic dancing, erotic or exotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or Bar (establishment), bar style, and can also ...

culture. There was significant controversy about the piece. Jones was a 2011 Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC.20 years of Artists-In-Residence
McColl Center Also in 2011 Jones was chosen to discuss creativity on a panel for Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. She was featured in the

Afropunk Afro-punk (sometimes spelled Afro-Punk, Afropunk or AfroPunk) refers to the participation of African Americans and other Black people in punk and alternative subcultures, especially in the United States. History The term originated from the 200 ...

Showcase at Moogfest in 2014. In 2005 she received a Caversham Printmaking Fellowship and attended the Spelman College Taller Portobello Artist Colony in 2006. In 2018 Jones' work was included in the exhibition ''Black Blooded'' at the New Gallery of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC. A performance of hers was featured as part of the opening reception, in which she wore raven feathers and a white dress while creating a live

kinetic Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to: * Kinetic theory of gases, Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion * Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to i ...

drawing in charcoal. The

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

from the work was displayed in the gallery following the exhibition. Also included in this exhibit, curated by Jessica Moss, were works by Mickalene Thomas, Theaster Gates, Hebru Brantley, Zun Lee, Rashayla Marie Brown and Kerry James Marshall. Also in 2018 Jones included work in ''The Black Woman is God: Assembly of Gods'' an annual exhibition of work by Black women artists at SOMArts Gallery in San Francisco.

Personal life

Jones met poet Saul Williams after moving to New York and in 1996 birthed their daughter, Saturn River Renge, after sixty-hour labor. In 2004, three days after earning her MFA, Jones was hospitalized and diagnosed with

Multiple Sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Marcia 1972 births Living people African-American women artists American contemporary painters American women artists Artists from Charlotte, North Carolina Clark Atlanta University alumni University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumni African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people