Jon Onye Lockard, a working artist and educator, whose career spans more than forty years, has
exhibited and lectured both nationally and internationally. He is a faculty member of Washtenaw Community
College and the University of Michigan, both in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A past president of The National Conference of Artists, Lockard is currently Associate Director of The Society for the Study of African American Culture and Aesthetics. He hosted and co-produced The Society's biweekly journal of cultural affairs, Sankofa, previously aired on Barden Cable Television of Detroit. He founded his company Visions of Destiny to share his art with the world.
"The art of Jon Onye Lockard amplifies the often quoted folk wisdom of elderly African Americans who remind us: "You don't know where you're going, if you don't know where you've been." That heritage and destiny are inextricably linked as a perspective not only indigenous to the African American community, but ultimately traceable to prototypical philosophical traditions in Africa. Among the Akan of Ghana, for example, Sankofa--the image of a bird with a "back-turned" head, symbolically alludes to the supreme wisdom of learning from the yesterdays of culture history in building the bright tomorrow of the future. Lockard's art transports us across time and space. Without question, his subjects are diverse. But when placed in juxtaposition, the images reveal facets of a complex and continuing saga. Our ability to comprehend and appreciate Lockard's art is a fundamental test of our own cultural literacy. It is suffice to say, his oeuvre offers didactic views on a past filled with glorious moments, a present shaped by victories over victimization, and visions of a destiny yet to be achieved."
Bamidele Agbasegbe Demerson, Ph.D.
Historical Curator, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Detroit, Michigan