Poster with artwork by Ryan. Poster design by Rodeo Studio at Portland State University
Napoleon Jones-Henderson:Rhythms of the Ancestors / Ritmos de las Antepasados with Ms. Kahn and KSMoCA’s mentee students
March 13, 2025 - June 2, 2025
Napoleon Jones-Henderson is KSMoCA’s Winter 2025 artist-in-residence. He is a Boston-based image maker, multidisciplinary artist, and founding member of the visual artist collective AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists). For more than 50 years, he has created artwork guided by AfriCOBRA’s aesthetic principles—vibrant “cool-ade” colors, shine, and organic forms—that uplifts, empowers, and celebrates the beauty of Black people. Inspired by the cultural forms of the African Diaspora, his sculptures, tapestries, works on paper, and various multimedia artworks often incorporate elements of African sculpture, southern architecture, and references to Black American history and culture.
Although Jones-Henderson is originally from Chicago, Illinois, he has lived and worked in the historic Black neighborhood of Roxbury since 1974. He also serves as the executive director of the Research Institute of African and African Diaspora Art, Inc. and BENNU ARTS, LLC, where he organizes free cultural events that introduce community members to Black art and artists.
As part of his residency, Jones-Henderson collaborated with Ms. Kahn’s second-grade class and KSMoCA’s mentee students to create structures that function as sacred spaces for the cultivation of ideas and concepts. These “sculptures” are inspired by the Rosenwald Schools—the first “state-of-the-art” schools built for Black children in the South—and Jones-Henderson’s series of “shrine works” sculptures that reference key figures and moments in Black history. For the first workshop, students decorated their house-like structures made of cardboard using AfriCOBRA’s signature “cool-ade” color palette. In the second workshop, Jones-Henderson led students through the process of finishing their structures with fabric and other found materials, such as newspapers and beads, which he also incorporated into his shrine sculptures. Collectively, these buildings represent a sacred community that mirrors the learning community at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School.
Napoleon Jones-Henderson was born in 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Sorbonne Student Continuum-Student and Artists Center in Paris, France in 1963 where he was immersed in an independent study program in French Art History and Figure Drawing. Upon returning to the United States, he enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago receiving his B.F.A. degree in 1971. Jones-Henderson went on to earn credits in advanced graduate studies in Fine Arts at Northern Illinois University and earned his M.F.A. degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005.
His artwork is in the collections of the DuSable Museum of African American History, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Southside Community Art Center, Hampton University Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of National Center of Afro-American Artists and Studio Museum in Harlem. In addition, his artwork is in distinguished private collections and numerous public art commissions. He lives and works in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Winter 2025 KSMoCA Visiting Artist
Workshops with Napoleon Jones-Henderson
During his winter 2025 artist residency at KSMoCA, Napoleon Jones-Henderson led workshops with Ms. Kahn’s second grade and KSMoCA’s mentee students. They built houses from cardboard in the style that Jones-Henderson has used in his own work. Then they glued and pasted images of things they find important on the surface of the structure so the house becomes a sacred space for cultivation of ideas and concepts.
Artist Talk with Napoleon Jones-Henderson and Exhibition Opening
Over 50 students from different grades gathered in the school library for Jones-Henderson’s artist talk. Every attendee received a copy of a small magazine about him that was created by Portland State University students. After the talk, Jones-Henderson and students in Ms. Kahn’s class gave visitors tours of the exhibit. Families, classmates, school staff, and members of the public were all invited to attend and celebrate.
Installation documentation
