Dreamsong is pleased to present a solo exhibition for Ta-Coumba T. Aiken titled Awakening. The exhibition will feature recent paintings and works on paper by the artist. In his practice, the artist draws on the rhythms of African drumming, jazz music, improvisation, and a deep, generous spirituality to create animated, layered works that subsume multiplicities in a dynamic abstract field. Through his tireless work as an artist, activist, and educator, and as the creator of hundreds of vibrant public works of art, Ta-Coumba has made an immeasurable contribution to the civic and artistic life of the Twin Cities.

Born in 1952 in Evanston, Illinois, Aiken studied art at the Minneapolis College for Art and Design. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2022 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Fine Arts, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, a Gottlieb Fellowship and a BUSH Visual Arts fellowship. His work is included in several public art collections including the Walker Art Center, The McKnight Foundation, Ceasar Pelli’s Minneapolis Central Library, Augsburg University’s Hagfors Center, BUSH Foundation and the Saint Paul Foundation. 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, Minnesota, and Marin City, California.