Timothy Washington was born in 1946 and raised in the largely Black communities of South Los Angeles. Washington’s early childhood placed him in close proximity to the Watts Towers, which, as a child, he and his brothers would boldly climb. Washington’s investigation of the seventeen monumental, interconnected mosaic towers was at once architectural, visual, and formal and serves as a lasting and important touchstone. Washington’s grandfather, a master carpenter, is recognized by Washington as being another major influencer.

Timothy Washington studied at the Chouinard Art Institute with Charles White, alongside fellow artist David Hammons. Washington’s work has long been associated with others in the Black Arts Movement – the aesthetic and social sibling to the Black Power Movement – as well as those catalyzed by the Watts Rebellion of 1965 including Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar, John Outterbridge and John Riddle. Many of these artists, like Washington, came to create artworks repurposing debris from burnt and destroyed buildings, recovering debris from abandoned homes and the environment at large. 

In the decades since his youth, Washington has become more sensitive to the relationships between materials, as well as what he refers to as the “liveliness” of objects. “When I had an etching class, the plate seemed so much more fascinating to me than the print itself. And I wondered about boundaries in art. Wny should the plate be considered something to use to make a paper print when I loved the plate so much more? The plate said so much more to me because it had me with it.” Washington is known for his graphic and pictorial works – which include mixed-media collages, metal etchings and drypoints, painting, and drawings on paper – as he is the volumetric sculptures; his object-based processes accrued from the material process of sculpture inform the creation of his visual works. Across media – and across decades – Washington’s works produce new meanings and messages indiscriminately, unearthly-inspirited, and with intentions bold and elusive alike.