Gee Horton is a Cincinnati-based, self-taught artist whose multidisciplinary practice uses drawing, photography, collage, film, and installation to explore portraiture, memory, and the emotional inheritance of Black life.
Working primarily in charcoal and graphite, Horton produces highly detailed photorealistic images that explore Black interiority, memory, and cultural identity.
And starting April 24, Horton’s work will be showcased by Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center.
His work often merges documentary observation with narrative imagination, forming visual worlds where personal memory intersects with collective history.
This narrative-driven exhibition features his loosely autobiographical account of the struggles of Freeman Little, a 37-year-old Black man living with Guent Bu Wa, a rare hereditary sleep disorder that causes vivid, prophetic dreams.
Through immersive sculptural assemblages, symbolic iconography, and his beloved meticulously drawn figures, Horton weaves a dreamlike account of the consequences of intergenerational trauma, cultural legacy, and the rupture of colonial inheritance.
Horton’s practice frequently begins with photography, archival material, and lived encounters, which he later translates through a meticulous drawing process rooted in patience, repetition, and close observation.
“I put the work in front of me. I’m only a vessel,” he said during a recent conversation with Postindustrial. “And so I’m really excited to see where it continues to grow.”
These portraits often emerge within layered compositions that incorporate collage, symbolic gestures, and environmental cues, situating the subject within broader histories of place, family, and community. Through this process, Horton approaches drawing not only as a method of representation but as a form of reflection, preservation, and reclamation.
Recurring themes in Horton’s work include nostalgia, inner childhood, ancestral memory, and the fragile threshold between innocence and experience. His images often explore the emotional landscapes that shape identity across generations, reflecting on how memory, environment, and cultural inheritance inform the ways individuals come to understand themselves and the world around them.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Horton is the founder of the Gee Horton Studio Gallery in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. You can learn more about his work here.
