We are all artists at birth. I love the powerful healing qualities of art and the way it embraces and joins people across the planet like global glue. My heritage, learning world cultures, and travel abroad influences how I view and create art.“
CLEASTER COTTON Biography
Cleaster Cotton is an Indigenous American with Ancestors spanning the African Diaspora. Painter, Designer, Photographer, Educator, Inventor and Author, Cotton was born into a large, close-knit family and lovingly raised by southern parents in the heart of Brooklyn, New York.
Cleaster’s approach to art is organic, innovative, honest and unexpected - with a refreshing use of texture, shape, line, and color. Her contemporary art is presented in colorful, graphic designs, collages, acrylic, mixed media narrative, figurative and abstract paintings, photography, and digital collage.
Cleaster also produces stand-alone photographic imagery. When she was a little girl, Cleaster peered down into her grandfather’s camera, discovered the magic of refraction and fell in love with photography. Her subjects include nature, portraits, architectural, industrial, documentary, still life, social commentary, food, and popular photography. She captures daily occurrences and rarely presented events in nature and society.
Cotton's recent Exhibits and Commissions include: “Going To Market” Mural (Artist/Designer) (Partner - UNC Asheville STEAM Studio and Justin Turcotte) (2019); “TransFormNation” (solo exhibit) The Asheville School 2019; “Evocation” (solo exhibit) Pink Dog Creative (2019); “United State of Inequity” (solo exhibit) Mars Hill University (2019); “Asheville Through Brown Eyes” (group exhibit) Asheville Area Arts Council; “Winged Narratives: A Social Study” (solo exhibit) Asheville Area Arts Council (2019); “Into The Blue Artist Invitational” (featured artist) Blue Spiral 1 (2018); “Intersections” (group show) The Junction (2017); Pink Dog Creative Container Mural (solo artist) (2016).
