In the 1960s, Robert Underwood left his small Kentucky town as a teenager and became Sun Ra’s protégé. He became the percussionist for Ra’s Arkestra and returned home in 2016 as Ayé A. Aton. Over seven decades on the road, Aton explored vast distances of space and time, studying the mysteries of outer space and Ancient Egypt under Ra’s mentorship, then turning to art in a self-directed inquiry into the visual culture of West and Central Africa. In later years, Aton’s research into his African ancestry deepened, and his work turned away from Ra’s Afrofuturism toward a more historically grounded approach.
From left to right: Ayé A. Aton “Inspiration Afrika #17” (2006) and “Inspiration Afrika #15” (2005)
Ayé A. Aton: Image from the Past celebrates this later period in the artist’s life with a small but luminous exhibition of 16 paintings created between 2004 and 2012. In a representative grouping of six works on paper, each piece recalls a Central or West African mask, rendered in Aton’s own freeform style. Faces appear fragmented, with curving, amorphous shapes against a swirling background of marbleized acrylic. Other elements surround the masks, such as patterned shields in “Ngbaka People of the Congo” (2012), but more often, Aton adds geometric forms suggestive of the cosmos or figurative shapes that resemble winged animals or spirits.
