Artist Statement
Gee Horton (b. 1983, Louisville, KY) is a self-taught, interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, collage, photography, videography, assemblages, and installation. In 2020, he made the transformative decision to leave his corporate career and fully embrace his artistic calling - a pivotal shift that grounds his work in personal reclamation and cultural storytelling. Rooted in the aesthetics of hyperrealism, his drawings - so precise they flirt with photography - anchor a larger practice that engages memory, intimacy, and identity.
Horton draws on found materials and archival ephemera to animate his work, turning portraits into layered visual memoirs steeped in memory, place, and cultural resonance. These same materials flow into his assemblages and installations, where fragments of everyday Black life are reconfigured into immersive spatial narratives. Through these arrangements, he builds environments that echo the textures of urban landscapes and personal memory, closing the distance between object, story, and viewer.
Rooted in personal and lived experience, Horton draws upon family archives, relationships, and the memories of loved ones - both living and departed. These intimate threads form portals that confront generational wounds, hold space for ancestral memory, and reflect on the complexities of healing. His practice reimagines domestic and street spaces not just as physical environments, but as emotional terrains - sites of both refuge and reckoning - where the subtle acts of erasure are acknowledged, and the process of restoration becomes a shared and necessary act.
Biography
His work has been exhibited at the Kentucky Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Alice F. & Harris K. Weston Gallery, Kennedy Heights Arts Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Mansfield Art Center, the Springfield Museum of Art (USA), and Koik Contemporary Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico). A forthcoming solo exhibition at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center is scheduled for 2026.
His work is held in both private and public permanent collections, including The Cincinnati Art Museum and The Mercantile Library. He has participated in artist residencies in Senegal (Diasporic Soul) and at The Mercantile Library of Cincinnati, where he created a monumental portrait of Black abolitionist Peter H. Clark - earning him a regional Emmy Award.
His work has garnered national attention, featured on HBO’s Insecure and Amazon Prime’s Harlem, and has been covered in The Cincinnati Enquirer, Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art, Good Housekeeping Magazine, and Bravity Magazine.
He is the founder of The Garden Studio Gallery in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine district and has received awards and recognition from ArtsWave, FotoFocus, the Ohio Arts Council, CODA Summit, Creative Time, and CreativeOhio. He was named a Creative Ohio Semi-Finalist for CreativeOhio’s Champion Advocacy Awards, honored as a CODA Summit Creative Revolutionary, received a Juror’s Choice Award in the Ohio Arts Council’s Ohio Artist Registry Exhibition, and was selected for both the Creative Ohio Arts & Advocacy Leadership Fellowship and the Cincinnati USA Chamber's Leadership Development Cohort.
His short film Be Home Before the Streetlights - a cinematic extension of his exhibition trilogy - was selected for the OTR International Film Festival and the Cindependent Film Festival.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Contemporary Artist
Born in Louisville, Kentucky
Lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio
Education
2008 — Master of Social Work, University of Louisville
2006 — Bachelor of Psychology, Thomas More College
Solo Exhibitions
2024 — Chapter three: Be Home Before the Streetlights, KMAC Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
2024 — Chapter two: A Subtle Farewell to the Inner Child, Kennedy Heights Cultural Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
2022 — Coming of Age: New Acquisition Exhibit, The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
2021 — Chapter One: Coming of Age The Alice F. & Harris K. Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
Group Exhibitions
2024 — Proximity of Fate, Mansfield Art Center, Mansfield, Ohio
2023 — The Inner Child, Koik Contemporary Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
2023 — Ohio Voices, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
2022 — Let’s Grow, Alpha Arts Alliance, Brooklyn, New York
2020 — Truth & Reconciliation, The National Underground Railroad Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 — Black & Brown Faces, The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 — Uprising, The Kennedy Heights Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 — Not for Sale, The Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
2019 — Banz Studios Presents, Banz Studios Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
2019 — Behind the Art, The Root Gallery, New Albany, Indiana
2019 — Manifestations of Time, The Mohawk Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
Public Art Projects & Commissions
2024— Blink Lights Festival 2024, Cincinnati, Ohio
2022— Orange Barrel Media Presents Gee Horton, Atlanta, GA, Detroit, MI, Los Angeles, CA
2021 — Amazon Prime, “Harlem” Artwork Television Appearance – Season 1, Episode 11
2021 — Coming of Age Mural at Court Street Plaza, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 — The Cincinnati Music Fest Outdoor Art Museum at Washington Park, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 — The Black Lives Matter! Mural at The City Hall of Cincinnati, Ohio
Collections
2022 — The Cincinnati Art Museum
2021 — The Mercantile Library of Cincinnati
2021 — The Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection
Residencies
2022 — Diasporic Soul, Artist in Residence, (Month of July), Sebikhotane, Senegal West Africa
2021 — The Mercantile Library of Cincinnati, Artist in Residence – Peter H. Clark Portrait (Commission)
Professional Affiliations
2019 - 2024 Artworks Cincinnati, Board of Trustee, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 - 2023 Wavepool, Board of Trustee, Cincinnati, Ohio
2020 - 2022 Urban Consulate Host, Cincinnati, Ohio