Kevin Cole: Where Do We Go from Here? Gerrymandering and Voting packs painful history into a show that asks a painful question. It intertwines history with more immediate and urgent suppression efforts. In addition to obstacles to voting (amounting to impossibilities), the gerrymandering of legislative districts has in most cases diminished the voting power of African Americans in particular.

Cole explores the ongoing struggle against disenfranchisement, and for the equal participation of African Americans in the divisive arena of contemporary politics. Cole recalls when he was 18 his grandfather pointed to a tree on his property where African American men were lynched by their neckties on their way to vote. The experience left a profound impression. Many of the works in Where Do We Go From Here? Gerrymandering and Voting employ the necktie as a symbolic component. For the Ballot Box Series, Cole started researching poll taxes and registering to vote in the South.When African Americans tried to vote they would be asked crazy questions such as “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap? How many jellybeans in a jar?" Cole asked friends to speak with their parents and grandparents about their experience in trying vote. Ms. Earnestine Bradley from Ocoee, Florida said three days before election day there would be a cross burning. The day before there would be noose along with a sign,“It’s best you not be hanging around here to vote”. Others were asked how many seeds are in a watermelon? Ms. Annie Mae Parker of Edgefield, SC said she was asked “How many black eye peas come in a bag?"

The Dirty South is a series of cut outs of Southern states where gerrymandering is an effective tool of diluting the Black vote and consequently, Black representation. The areas where you see the dirt from that state is where voter suppression take place.

Karen Watson, director of the Sumter County Gallery of Art (SCGA) notes, This is an important exhibition - the history of Black voter suppression - on the eve of the Presidential election. The exhibition is historical in nature and South Carolina is central to this history. Eric Lachance, SCGA curator and assistant director observes, Kevin Cole's exhibition asks us to investigate the nuanced complexities of the American Experiment. Through works on paper, monumental aluminum forms, and ballot boxes, Cole's work asks: Who do we disenfranchise when the scales are tilted, and by extension, what and who are we enfranchising in the process?

Cole earned his M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University, and an M.A. degree in Art Education from the University of Illinois.  He maintained a career as an exhibiting artist while teaching art in the City of Atlanta Public Schools for more than 30 years. His artwork has been featured in more than 490 exhibitions and 4000 public, private and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad. His works are in public collections across the U.S., including the National Museum of African American History (Smithsonian Institution), the Corcoran Gallery Museum, Washington DC, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA, The High Museum, Atlanta, GA; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C and the Yale University Art Gallery.

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