ARTIST STATEMENT
The work traces migration as memory and transformation—micro-archives and cosmic interventions that reimagine routes of forced and chosen movement, where ancestral knowledge, labor, and imagination shape new futures.
CREATIVE PROCESS RECIPE
1 pound of flesh and bone
1 pound of spirit
1 pound of psychic energy
1 pound of respect and appreciation for my ancestors
1/2 cup of unearthing the hidden stories behind what we have been told is true.
1/2 cup longing for Home
1/2 cup of Archival Material
Archival material, foraging, and provenance are a strategy to the creative process. Seven girl ancestral voices that have time-traveler wisdom
but stumble through this plane as child-like spirits
A pinch of ideologies of traditional history, culture, and science
A balance of Catholicism and Afro-Indigenous religions
Seasoned with Robert Farris Thompson’s work and the writings of bell hooks
I am a catalyst for healing in drawing attention to significant Black navigators, both historical and ancestral. My performance drawings are
cartographic, vibrational readings that interpret time and space. In all of my work, there is always the impulse to search for home and
connectedness to the human experience
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Colleen Coleman is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator working across drawing, collage, animation, performance, and installation. Born in Darlington, South Carolina, she holds a BA from Cambridge College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Rooted in historical research and speculative storytelling, her practice interrogates race, gender, and systems of power while centering healing and joy — weaving her own image together with unnamed historical Black figures to create immersive work that collapses past, present, and future. Influenced by Surrealism and artists such as Fred Wilson, Howardena Pindell, and Adrian Piper, Coleman’s work has been exhibited nationally, including at the Benton Museum of Art, and is held in public and private collections.
She is a two-time recipient of a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowship, has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Chautauqua Visual Arts. She is the Lead Artist-in-Residence and Curatorial Advisor for 2026 at Art Crawl Harlem on Governors Island.
© Colleen Coleman