TIMOTHY WASHINGTON

(b. 1946 in Watts, California) creates assemblages that incorporate drawing, painting, and sculpture. Washington’s style developed in conversation with his L.A.-based peers including John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, and David Hammons, building off early influence from Simon Rodia’s seminal Watts Towers (1921-54), which he climbed as a young boy. Works such as Love Thy Neighbor, 1968 and Kapok Tree, 2009 incorporate discarded objects found in his native L.A.

Washington also sources materials from friends that go directly into his assemblages including hair, jewelry, urban debris, plastic toys, street signs, ceramic shards, and thrifted items. Washington is a notable member of the Black Arts Movement, which was led by African American cultural practitioners as the “aesthetic and spiritual sister” of the Black Power Movement, and Los Angeles Black Assemblage Movement, which salvaged rubble of the artists’ communities for creative visual production.