John W. Carlson explores the history of Blues music in this new exhibition at HEDGE Gallery, portraying images of African Americans in both the present and the past engaging with landscape, family and musical themes through his distinct expressionistic style. He captures emotion, gesture and spirituality with heavy oil stick drawings, impasto layers of oil paint and even collaged found objects in some of his more recent canvases.

The artist has been inspired both by other creatives to explore this theme, and by his recent travels to the Mississippi Delta region. Carlson attended a talk at Oberlin College featuring choir director Jessie Reeder, who spoke on the origins of Slave Songs and Spirituals. Carlson has interviewed Reeder for his BLUES project, and her voice was part of the exhibition during an artist talk at the Gallery on March 5, 2020. The following links will take you to You Tube videos by Robert Banks who captured the Artists discussing their work, as well as Carlson performing with Kerry Davis:

During the summer of 2019, Carlson took several trips to Mississippi to the towns where Blues music was born. He desired a full sensory experience, and wanted to explore for himself the mystery and spirituality of these places. John has incorporated subjects of his travels such as the sound of insects, the unrelenting heat, smells of the river and the vastness of the fields into this recent work. He intends to take viewers on a visual journey to the places in our souls where the stories of survival, love, loss, and joy come from.

Artist Shari Wilkins will accompany John W. Carlson’s BLUES exhibition, with selections from her series Promised Land which portrays photographic images of homes from her father's hometown, Cairo, Illinois, many on instant film and handmade paper.