N’Namdi Contemporary

N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami was established in 2012 and is based in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami, FL. Founded by second-generation art dealer, Jumaane N’Namdi, the gallery’s program dates back to Detroit (1981-Present) and has expanded to Chicago (1997-2012), New York (2001-2009) and now focuses on the Miami area. The gallery continues to uphold the artistic standards of the master artists, with a special focus on education, culture, and aesthetics. Since its inception, the gallery has worked with various museums including, Art Institute of Chicago, The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Perez Art Museum Miami, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Smithsonian, and The Studio Museum of Harlem, among many others.

August,  2020  Miami,  FL  –  N’NAMDI  Contemporary,  Miami is proud to present, ​Right back Atcha! ​ Is a solo exhibition  by  celebrated,  mid-career multidisciplinary  artist, Gregory Coates. In this exhibition, the art emotes, “Right Back Atcha!” as reference to a return to materiality, a second look at everyday objects and tools that choreograph our lives. 

In this latest body of work explores the nuanced ways  in which tools of labor can define and redefine  personal, social, and cultural histories. Bridging the  aesthetics of two artistic generations (modern &  contemporary), Coates continues to employ these 

fugitive materials as double entendres and metaphors for past and present meanings.  Playing with these contexts, Coates willfully blurs the lines between our ideas of traditional  painting & sculpture by combining and separating media. 

With a keen emphasis on the history of materials, Coates draws on viewers’ sensory  impulses with energetic use of ultra blue, painted heavily on textured bristles of  repurposed push brooms, Intertubes, and other objects of everyday use. This interplay of  dynamic color choices and titles are used to “push conversations” on our notions of utility  through the context of material possession. Coates sites his choice of monochromatic  colors “to distill your thoughts to focus on form, line, and structural composition.” Coates  says, “There’s a universal understanding of blue, from water, the ocean and its vastness. In  a way, it connects us all to the natural world but also is reflected in signs, symbols, and  global brands to get our attention.” 

Coates material form and color to shift our attention to highlight how humanity constantly  innovates on the ideas embedded in everyday objects and reimagine their utility the  longer we physically possess them. What we know about them is attributed to our journey  of discovering ourselves.  

About Gregory Coates

Gregory Coates (B. 1961) Born Washington D.C. Currently lives and works in Allentown,  Pensilanya. Coates’ work explores the possibility and nature of unorthodox material.  Coates is a graduate of Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Skowhegan  School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He has held numerous residencies including,  Gasworks in London, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Triangle Workshops in Cape Town,  South Africa, Pine Plains, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Coates’ artwork is included in  museum collections such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American  History and Culture, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, The Virginia Museum of Art,  The Studio Museum in Harlem, Paul Pozzoza Museum in Düsseldorf, Germany, the City of  Obama in Japan, and many corporate and private collections.   Coates is a Joan Mitchell  Foundation and New York Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Pollock-Krasner- and  Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant.