Opening in the Sheffer Gallery on March 10th is an exhibit of artworks by former Westport resident and Professor of Design at North Carolina Central University and North Carolina State University, Charles Joyner, that boldly reveals the artist's creative journey. The exhibit is located in the Library's Sheffer Gallery, with an opening night reception and panel discussion on March 10th in the Trefz Forum.
Charles Joyner layers and melds photographs, textiles, colored shapes, and symbols in his collages. Born in 1941 in rural Johnston County, North Carolina, Joyner describes his work as a ‘transparency’ of his upbringing and study of Ghanaian culture. His subjects intersect African and African American cultures and embrace Black folk traditions of North Carolina's Coastal Plain region, epic moments of the civil rights era in which he came of age, and subjects drawn from his extensive travels in Ghana.
Joyner forged personal ties to Westport, Connecticut in 1964. That year, at age sixteen he left home to participate in the American Friends Service Committee’s ‘Southern Negro Student Program.’ The Quaker initiative placed southern Black students in the north to complete high school and live with host families. At Staples High School, Joyner was one of five Black students in his class (‘66). He went on to attend Iowa State University then North Carolina A&T State University (BS), followed by University of North Carolina-Greensboro (MFA).
Joyner became a popular and distinguished professor of design at North Carolina Central University and North Carolina State University where he also served as director of its Ghana study abroad program. Beginning in 1995, he gained unparalleled access to traditional craft villages and artisans. Joyner’s vibrant multilayered works pay tribute to the ancestry, rituals, religion, and spirituality permeating Ghanaian communities and convey his own cross-cultural connections.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by grants from the Connecticut Humanities, and Drew Friedman Community Arts Center.
To learn more about Charles Joyner, visit the Artists in Residences video gallery on the library’s website.
Charles Joyner
Westport's Local Artists
Westport's Artistic Legacy
