Althea Jones: Skin Color

Skin Color was conceptualized after Jones encountered a container of peachy ink labeled “skin color.” As a BIPOC artist, this color label caused Jones to pause. She began to question her personal relationship with her own identity and skin color alongside mainstream marketing. Skin Color seeks to explore the ability to celebrate skin differences while bringing to light, in a unique way, an example of implicit bias. While implicit bias is not necessarily malicious, it develops unconsciously from social structures and affects behaviors and decisions that perpetuate unintended discrimination.

Althea Jones, a non-traditional art student, started the Skin Color project with The University of Akron and a smaller group of individuals in Dallas, Texas. After the preliminary programming, she saw an opportunity to scale up the project and build in more educational and connective components. Jones plans to color match, with paint, the specific skin color of at least 1000 people over the life of this project. These skin color sessions will include intimate and enlightening conversations about life, connection, identity, and race. The color-matching sessions will occur at partner institutions and pop-up experiences throughout Summit County from June through August 2023. Akron Soul Train’s CapSOUL gallery will host Jones’ interactive exhibition Skin Color from August 1 through September 9, 2023. The installation will include a wall of “skin pantones” and jars of individualized color that will more accurately live up to the ink titled “skin color.”

ARTIST BIO

Althea Jones is an interdisciplinary artist based in Northeast, Ohio. Inspired by the human condition, Althea uses her work to explore human nature and emotions. She believes in the concept of perfect imperfection and enjoys creating work from discarded items and lively strokes, scrapes and splashes of paint. 

Althea developed her passion for art as a child and rekindled her love affair with the creative world after leaving her corporate career. She enjoys all manners of creativity including poetry, street photography, textiles and painting. Since 2017 Althea has been searching for her authentic voice and developing her art practice. She has enjoyed a grass roots approach to art, showing, selling and creating both traditional sized canvases and large format murals in restaurants, coffee shops, abandoned buildings and street corners in the US Northeast.  

In 2022, Althea took a leap of faith and enrolled in the Mary Schiller Myers School of Art at the University of Akron where she is seeking a BFA. With the support of a village of educators and professionals, she is exploring a variety of art medium and conceptual ideas.