Originals gallery

Originals Gallery

As time will allow, we will be posting more original works to this part of the gallery for those who would like to own an original.

The Paperboy

Original Egg Tempera on Gesso Panel, 36×48″ . The paperboy was originally done for the Atlanta Tribune’s 10th anniversary. I was asked to do a piece to commemorate their anniversary, so I wanted to make a statement about Black enterprise. The model, one of my children’s playmates, posed for me with the C-notes he’s counting. The money represents the measure of his success, his Swiss army knife represents his ability to adapt to whatever situation he’s facing, and his red stripped helmet is symbolic of his attitude, which is the stubborness and determination that he needs to succeed and achieve his goal. The leaves form a pattern of menacing shadows. LIke pincers, they represents the forces that don’t want him to succeed. Fortunately, they’re far enuf away that they aren’t a real threat. The bike is the ultimate symbol of his hard work and his progress, because its a twenty speed, which is kind’a nice.

It's a Long, Long story.

Original egg tempera on gesso panel, 24×48″. Every year, during the 1st week in Feb, I used to do a show in L.A. It was the Artist’s Salute to Black History, and it was really special. I did a commemorative piece for Black History Month every year. This one was for ’93. The creation scene from the Sistene Chapel shows Adam as a man of color, while the slave trade is represented as the red and black wall extending out before him and the slaves are working in the cotton field are behind him. Adam, like Christ, has an open wound in his side. His blood is soaking the soil of the south as he reaches out to his God for deliverance. The storm clouds are breaking apart as the sun shines thru while the civil rights movement begins with Frederick Douglass, and moves leftward showing Booker T Washington, Mary McCleod Bethune, Benjamin Mays, and Rosa Parks. Behind Rosa Parks is the march on Selma, then Malcolm X and Martin King greeting each other, and finally, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall sits, presiding over the history. Finally, the family is seen walking on the beach, emerging from the struggle that is represented by the characters in blue, all covered in the blood of the struggle. I think you can see that the painting really is about our history, which is a long, long story.

"The Broken Chain"

Original Egg Tempera on gesso panel, 48 x 60″. I happen to have a certain amount of native-american in my family tree on my father’s side, so I decided to do a series of paintings that addressed the issue of freedom that both, the red man and the black man faced in this country’s earliest history of slavery. I called the series, “The African-Indian Connection”. This was the first painting that I did in that series, (there were five altogether). The Native American is hammering away at the chain, trying to set the black man free. The forest was important to me because I can’t imagine what this country must have looked like as a wilderness. I wanted to show what that might have looked like. There are birds and a fox in the piece, along with a weasel and a few other creatures that are interested in the strange noise the two men are making.

"The Garden of Love"

Original Egg Tempera on gesso panel, 36×48″, copyright by Jimi Claybrooks, 1998. In this painting I wanted to create a scene that would look like my back yard when I get to heaven. The house on the right behind the trees is my mansion in glory, while the gazebo is a place to sit and relax, enjoying the view of the garden only partially seen to the right. Its a peaceful place where beauty is everywhere, and the sky is full of cotton candy clouds.

Bird of Paradise

Original oil on canvas, 24×30″, copyright 2020 by Jimi Claybrooks. I grew up in the city of Chicago. They called my neighborhood a “slum”. There were these vacant lots where a building had been torn down and there would be lots of bricks, chunks of drywall, and broken glass. You didn’t see anything green except these really tall weeds, unless you went to the park, which was quite a few blocks away, and you never, ever saw flowers. But all that changed when I went to college in Montgomery AL. Everything was so green, and there were all kinds of flowers growing in people’s yards. That was when I first noticed the flowers and how beautiful they were.I really enjoy painting flowers, like this bird of paradise. Usually I do florals in watercolor, but this one was done in oils.