Alfred Conteh: Strangers/Kin: The Lens of Alfred Conteh : Peoria Riverfront Museum

Strangers/Kin: The Lens of Alfred Conteh is the first time that multiple portraits by Alfred Conteh have been shown in the Peoria Riverfront Museum, two of them being portraits of Peoria natives, taken on Conteh’s visits to Peoria.

This collection of portraits explore the experience of familiarity in the Black experience across state lines. From Atlanta, Georgia, known as a mecca of Black culture to Peoria, Illinois where Black culture took a new form in the Great Migration, there are common cultural ties that transcend place.

Alfred Conteh, is a nationally-recognized artist, historian, social commentator, and a leader in the vanguard of American portraiture. He uses his studio practice to explore his identity and personal history from a number of different perspectives. Conteh was born in Georgia, and while his portraits have historically been based on subjects from his current base in Atlanta, Conteh has taken a few subjects from Peoria, Illinois, in the first deviation from Atlanta in his career.

Every portrait from Conteh is based on a real person, with his process starting by taking a photograph of the subject, before it is interpreted into a painted portrait that delves deeper into the essence of who they are, and beyond that, what they might represent.

In his visit to Peoria, Conteh looked for portraits of everyday life: barber shops, parks, corner stores and neighborhoods, and captures the everyday. His work emphasizes the person over the place, getting to the core of who we are. 

Sponsored  by Aaron and Amanda Kilgore, Brian and Erica Ray, Derrick Booth and Jean Gordon-Booth, Gretchen Hagan Petrakis, Sally Snyder, Visionary Society, Friends of Bronzeville to Harlem and Illinois Arts Council.