J O H N   I S I A H   W A L T O N   | | |   biography 

[lives & works - New Orleans, LA]

JOHN ISIAH WALTON is a New Orleans artist whose neo-expressionist works are internationally recognized for their commentary on race, class, identity, and current events through his irreverent, frenetic and sometimes absurdist style. His art has been on show at the Art Lab Akiba (Tokyo, Japan); the Atlanta Contemporary Biennial (Atlanta, Georgia); the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans, Louisiana); the permanent collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art (Biloxi, Mississippi); P339 (Brooklyn, New York); and more. His residencies include the Macedonia Institute (Chatham, New York) and the Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans). In 2022, he will showcase work in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Influenced by internet aesthetics, Black identity, pop culture, and Louisiana history, Walton’s subjects are often unconventional and sometimes shocking. In the tradition of Basquiat, his work frequently has hidden meanings and symbols, and his choppy brushwork endows the work with the energy and intensity that the artist is known for. Rooted in concern about the social, economic, political, and cultural structures at play in contemporary life, Walton’s best-known series sometimes encourage discomfort. 

His breakthrough exhibit was 2015’s “Beaucoup Humidity,” curated by the legendary Diego Cortez. A behind-the-scenes exploration of service industry workers of his hometown, the series exemplifies Walton’s signature wit and personal experience to depict the New Orleans underbelly hidden from tourists. The series was preceded by 2012’s “Zulu Portraits,” which featured post-colonial portraiture of Black and white political leaders in blackface to remind us to deconstruct or disentangle an errant white American history. The title is a reference to the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club parade krewe of New Orleans.

In 2016, Walton tackled the carceral state in a series featuring inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola, portrayed through portraits of bulls and bullfighters. The series aims to examine our complacency with incarceration, and represents a more subdued but no less subversive approach to critical social commentary. The “Black Paintings,” a series Walton began in 2017, address issues of identity including visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, figure, and void. On canvases painted black, layers of neon-hued acrylic and oil stick depict scenes ranging from the mundane to the controversial. 

Walton was the first African-American member of the artist collective The Front and a founding member of both The Level Artist Collective and the Second Story Gallery. He has lectured about his work to the graduate program at UNC, Chapel Hill. He attended St. Augustine High School. (1999-2002) and graduated from Sarah T. Reed High School (2003). Walton received an AA degree in 2012 from Delgado College, New Orleans.