Tyrone Ta-coumba Aiken

Tyrone Ta-coumba Aiken

Fellow: Awarded 2022
Field of Study: Fine Arts

Competition: US & Canada

Tyrone Ta-coumba Aiken, born 1952 in Evanston, Illinois, lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Since 1975 he has created works on canvas, paper, clay, glass and metal in a style he calls—Superlative Realism.

“I create my art to heal people and their communities by evoking a positive spirit, ” says Aiken, who in addition the Guggenheim Fellowship, is the recipient of numerous awards including, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Gottlieb Fellowship, BUSH Visual Arts fellowship, Knight Arts Challenge Grant. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, and was selected to attend FESTAC’77, Lagos, Nigeria.

The Walker Art Centers recently acquired Aiken’s artworks. Other public collections include The McKnight Foundation, Cesar Pelli’s Minneapolis Central Library, Augsburg University’s Hagfors Center, BUSH Foundation, Saint Paul Foundation, The Spritmuseum’s ABSOLUT VODKA collection (ABSOLUT AIKEN), Stockholm, Sweden.

Aiken has served on numerous boards including the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, City of Minneapolis Arts Commission, African American Cultural Arts Center, Forecast Public Arts, Saint Paul Art Collective, Springboard for the Arts, and he has been a public arts advisor to the cities of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Bloomington in Minnesota, and Marin City, California.
Aiken attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Fellow

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