Seattle
Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, an adept filmmaker, curator, video artist, and graphic novelist, focuses on pedestal sculptures and wall assemblages in his current show (on view through September 12, 2025). United by the use of found objects, the two bodies of work, which the artist calls “Terra Nada” and “Pelts,” reflect his longstanding sculptural philosophy of “Refuse Alchemy,” as well as a sensibility that rejects distinct categories of representation and abstraction.
A founding member of the Black Constellation collective, Alley-Barnes cites a variety of inspirations, including “meditative narratives,” for his explorations into cultural memory and “the aesthetic, ritual, and continuum that is the Black Metaphysical,” though he is mute about specific artistic or art historical influences. The startlingly original “Terra Nada” sculptures, in particular, open a wide-ranging dialogue. Mounted on recycled stacks of Lexan rescued from a bank demolition site, these objects are created from discarded materials twisted into allusive abstracted forms and covered in a uniform finish that uncannily mimics unglazed low-fire earthenware or terra cotta. Terra Nada, as a medium, is described as a “cross-section of mummification, ancient ceramic vessel building, monolithic carving, and brutalism.” One also finds echoes of abstract ceramic sculptors such as William Daley, as well as postwar New York sculptors such as Richard Stankiewicz and Reuben Nakian, whose practices involved found objects cast in bronze and fired earthenware.
Yet the “Terra Nada” sculptures stand apart. Alley-Barnes describes these enigmatic forms as “porous vessels” for “unhoused and under-acknowledged ancestral spirits,” and they indeed evoke ritual or devotional objects with an unknown purpose. Sidestepping Stankiewicz’s debt to Constructivism, Alley-Barnes softens edges and reinforces curves and negative spaces in a way that also suggests carved wood. The transparent plastic bases double as pools of water. A few, like epiphianic boo boos and revolutions are oft derailed by seafoam and flotsam (both 2024) approach the figurative, with “legs” and upstretched “arms.” Seed 1 (2023) could be a crouching, multi-limbed deity restrained by a thin “metal” rod that wraps around sprouting, phallic extensions. The title of Brer (Bunny) Or I was born in the briar patch Or Dern doggone Dogon (2023) makes the connection to African sculpture, reinforcing a sense of continuity between past and present.
The “Pelts” take an altogether different approach, replacing a sense of timelessness and mystery with clear references to contemporary concerns, including race, gender, and consumerism. Americakkkana (Resurgence of the Hitler Youth Hair Cut) (2014), made a decade before the “Terra Nada” works and a highlight of the 2023 Tacoma Art Museum exhibition “Soft Power,” could not be more socially engaged or prophetic. A checked-wool hunting jacket (decorated with three 6s in red varsity numbers), Hudson Bay blankets strategically folded into wings, and a lower torso made of found Japanese mailbags exude white male power. The image of a snarling cat, typical of sports insignia, stands in place of a head. The effect is commanding and chilling, though not without a bit of humor.
More recent “Pelt” works continue the dissection of archetypes, reveling in caricature and linguistic play. The full-figure Portrait of a ****st Neighbor or Best-Us Boast-Us (2024) consists of a vintage letterman’s jacket (emblazoned with the word “Assumption”), a Chinese children’s good luck hat, and an inverted American flag, which stands in as pantaloons—or a transgendered skirt—with attached Nike sneakers. Devoid of visible anatomy, the “portrait” is a hollow human, symbolic of the terrible intersection of professional (or college) sports, race, religion, and blind patriotism. Assumption U (2023), created from gold-lamé basketball shorts and warm-up jacket, faux-leopard print arms, and a triple mascot head, flags the disconnect between the aspirations and realities of Black male athletes recruited to play basketball for colleges that often neglect their education. Finally, Goo-Ruse (2023), with a fringed buckskin jacket and the flayed flap of an alligator purse protruding below the neck of an upside-down jersey, gives a humorous spin to the conflation of sexual and athletic prowess.
Alley-Barnes approaches sculpture as a means to transform what already surrounds us, and through that process, to transform thinking and culture. The satire and sharp wit of the “Pelts” are welcome, though they forsake the resonant power of the “Terra Nada” sculptures, with their aura of generative potential. Together, the two bodies of work, which span 11 years of the artist’s studio activities, chart complimentary points within Alley-Barnes’s continuum of past, present, and future, posing the question of where he will go next.
