ARTIST BIO

Painter/Mixed Media Artist (Certified Fine Artist by NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs)

Lloyd Oxendine's talent as a painter was recognized while he was just a youth. During his high-school years in North Carolina Emma Lawsen, an acknowledged painter and art teacher began nurturing his emerging talent. His early work caught the attention of Claude Howell, one of America’s pre-eminent regional artists. He received a painting scholarship to the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) to study with Mr. Howell. Lloyd’s desire, to further develop his craft and to understand its history, led him to New York City where he received a BA in Art History from Columbia University. He simultaneously studied painting at the Art Students League under the tutelage of Theodore Stamos. Lloyd continued his studies on a graduate level and received a MFA from the School of the Arts, Columbia University. In 1973, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the London School of Design for the excellence of his work.

The inspiration for Lloyd’s art is deeply rooted in his love of the ephemeral natural beauty of his childhood home land in North Carolina, the land of his Lumbee ancestors. The brilliant blue North Carolinian skies, the ever changing color spectrum reflected by the interplay of sun light on ocean waters are the source of Lloyd’s powerful painterly use of color. He employs both the color and texture of paint, sometimes using pure pigment and sometimes using layers of sheer color washes to create the fluidity and movement characteristic of his compositions. Lloyd's constructions and installation pieces are all tributes to and explorations of the elemental powers of the wind and the tides, and metaphorically to the constancy of change in life. Each of them is meticulously designed to move and float on the slightest current of air. These pieces present the viewer with a continually shifting perspective of color, light, shadow, shape and form. He thereby enables these works to create an intimate dialogue directly with the viewer's experience of them.

Lloyd's works are part of the permanent collections of many institutions including those of Columbia University, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Pembroke State University, The Antonia Vivaldi Foundation, and The Fashion Group. Additionally more than forty of his works have been acquired by private collectors throughout the U.S. and Europe. His art has been exhibited in more than thirty one-man and groups shows. A partial list includes: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of the American Indian, Columbia University, Rhode Island School of Design, The Cooper Union, University of North Carolina, Pembroke State University, The National Academy of Design, the Nathan Cummings Foundation Gallery, The Bristol-Meyers/Squibb Gallery, the Paine Weber Gallery, The Puffin Gallery, The Flushing Cultural Center, The Jamaica Arts Center, The American Indian Community House Gallery, The Ink People Gallery, The Harvard Club Gallery, The Nyorican Poets' Cafe, and The Stadttheater (Switzerland).

In 1972 Lloyd proposed the concept of a special edition of ART IN AMERICA to Brian O'Doherty (then editor of the magazine) to focus solely on Contemporary American Indian Art. Mr. O'Doherty agreed. That summer ART IN AMERICA published for the first time ever a SPECIAL ISSUE: The AMERICAN INDIAN (July-August 1972). Lloyd's article, “23 Contemporary Indian Artists' appeared in this ground-breaking edition. He introduced the public for the first time to the major tenets driving forth the evolution of Contemporary American Indian Art. He examined the significance of the then emerging trend of Pan-Indianism as evidenced in the work of the 23 artists whom he profiled in the article. His own work is included. This article quickly became and is to date the single seminal reference source for scholars and students of Contemporary American Indian Art.

Reproductions of Lloyd's artworks, and/or discussions of the works, and professional profiles of Lloyd Oxendine have been published in numerous books and periodicals including but not limited to: Native American Art in the Twentieth Century, The Lumbee, The New Indian Art, Fodor's Indian America, National Geographic, The New York Times, New York Newsday. Additionally, he has been interviewed by Barbara Walters and Frank McGee on The Today Show, by John Hockenberry on National Public Radio, and has been featured in television news broadcasts ranging from New York City local news programs, to those on Japanese National TV.

Lloyd has described his art by saying, "I'm eclectic. I am constantly accumulating and assimilating experiences and styles as forms of expression...constantly analyzing and reporting a way of seeing into a profounder reality, the Yin and Yang of existence."