Progression

By Arun Drummond

Progression is a mini retrospective tracing the evolution of my work across seven defining phases—from bold abstraction to urgent reflections on cultural erasure.

My earliest pieces, created in 2005, used layers of paint often scraped away to evoke movement, emotion, and experimentation. With Collectively Disconnected, I began forming my identity as a painter, drawing on folk art, symbolism, and personal storytelling to explore Black life and legacy.

The Natural Series followed, in which figures fade into their backgrounds—an expression of how culture can disappear over time without active preservation. That idea deepened in Lines, Lineage, and Legacy, where rhythmic stripes and bold lines symbolize the strength of family and heritage in holding cultural traditions together.

In High Society, Low Tide, I envisioned an alternate world untouched by slavery, where Black excellence flourishes without interruption. Convergence then brought ancestral imagery into conversation with contemporary forms, highlighting the resilience and adaptability of tradition.

My most recent work, Erasure, confronts the quiet danger of cultural invisibility. By deliberately removing the sweetgrass baskets from the compositions, I reveal the void left behind when traditions are neglected or lost.

Through every phase, my work remains grounded in storytelling, memory, and the fight to preserve cultural identity.

Artist Bio

Arun Drummond is a Charleston-based multidisciplinary artist whose work draws from Gullah traditions, Southern history, and contemporary Black culture. His paintings—often created on raw linen and layered with sweetgrass basketry—explore themes of ancestral memory, land, labor, and transformation.

A former gallery manager turned full-time painter, Drummond now runs the Drummond Studio Gallery on Charleston’s Eastside—a space dedicated to storytelling and the celebration of both emerging and established artists. His work is featured in the museum stores of the Gibbes Museum of Art and the International African American Museum in Charleston.