Aaron Coleman: Sentinels

Aaron Coleman’s studio practice comprises an amalgam of creative processes that address how mundane and seemingly anodyne artifacts embody the complex and pervasive history of race/racism and class/classicism in the United States. Coleman juxtaposes found objects and materials with contrary or jarring images that release uncomfortable truths and suppressed stories, both personal and political. His creative production is grounded in a critical analysis of authoritarian systems of information, control, and power, focusing on how religion, science, and anthropology contribute to and sustain race- and class-based oppression.

In the wall-mounted and floor-based sculptural assemblages brought together under the moniker “Sentinels,” Coleman uses a foundation of large sections of basketball courts extricated or harvested from defunct recreation centers in a once-thriving Black cultural and business community in central Indianapolis, his hometown. Atop that reconstituted gym floor, Coleman positions found objects from abandoned houses and derelict buildings in central Indianapolis to make structures that are deeply informed by the tradition of mask making. These eight-foot-high “Sentinels” surround viewers in a manner that is both protective and menacing. They are keepers of a collective history and harbingers of an uncertain present.