For years Justin Abraham has received accolades and attention for his accomplishments on the football field. Now the Georgia State senior linebacker is also drawing attention for his work as an artist.
Abraham joined fellow GSU students Zora Cokes and Samantha Pompa to produce the “Reimagining Success” exhibit Saturday in Decatur. Abraham had a handful of his metallic masterpieces on display at the show, which drew a couple hundred friends, family members and enthusiasts.
Abraham’s medium is metal sculpture. He is a big guy (6-foot-1, 230 pounds) who infuses his strength into his work and uses his intellect to think through the process and make each piece deliver its intended message.
“I put in countless hours,” Abraham said. He got home from Friday’s game at UConn and immediately went to the studio at 4 a.m. to put the finishing touches on Saturday’s exhibition. “It’s been pretty tough, but I’m a firm believer that if you really love something, you will make time for it, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been making some crazy time for it.”
More than once, Abraham has spent the night in the studio and got up in time to go to football practice the next morning.
“Tremendous guy,” GSU football coach Dell McGee said. “Very proud of him and what he’s meant to this university. He definitely represents this university well.”
Abraham incorporates a lot of chains, sheet metal and poured metal in his sculpture. It exudes strength as well as vulnerability, which fits with the profile of its creator, a preseason all-conference selection by the Sun Belt coaches.
“It’s just a true identity of myself,” Abraham said. “And just honestly, seeing what working consistently looks like. And having fun. It’s just an expression of my insides. Art is essentially just an extension of one spirit, so that’s how I feel that my work is just an extension of me. So when people see this, they’re just seeing the real me.”
Abraham’s entry into the arts came when he was a student at Hartsville High School in South Carolina. It was a balm to relieve a broken heart.
“It sounds super cliché, but I had a girl and I was like head-over-heels, and she broke up with me. Unexpectedly,” he said. “It was a mess. I was a mess.”
That’s when a concerned art teacher, Jaron Sanders, intervened to help Abraham funnel his lovesickness in a different direction.
“Mr. Sanders was cool. He gave me some good game,” Abraham said. “He said there wasn’t no need to worry about it and said one of his getaways is art. So, I started doing that and I started creating peace and put my emotions and how I felt toward things. After a while that developed into what you see here.”
One of the featured items at the show was “Caretaker,” an interactive piece that encourages visitors to take a smaller link of chain and add it to the elongated chain-link hand of the centerpiece figure, which is grazing the ground in acceptance.
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
“The smaller links are meant to be seen as daily burdens, struggles and worries,” Abraham said. “It’s meant to be a release for those who struggle to trash away small or big inconveniences in our daily lives.”
The show included an item which had a centerpiece set of sheet metal shoulder pads hung from the ceiling by chains. Another work, entitled “Toot,” is made of scraps and gave Abraham a chance to express “the root of my mental and emotional turmoil.” It represents his determination to keep his chin up and chest out during difficult times.
Abraham’s favorite piece in the exhibit is called “151″ because it was inspired by a childhood memory that occurred off Highway 151.
“It’s based off an experience my granddad had,” he said. “Every week after church, my granddad would take us and all my cousins and all the grandkids for Sunday evening rides. And on one particular evening he took us to one of the fields he used to sharecrop back when he was younger. That field is right off Highway 151.”
Abraham’s grandfather stopped the car at a cotton field and told the kids to get out and start picking cotton. That incident left an indelible impression on Abraham.
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
“He wanted to show us this was the experience he had,” Abraham said. “It was a dire environment.”
The “151″ piece features three fabricated cotton bolls emerging from the ground on thick chains. Inside the bolls are fresh cotton from his hometown and was handpicked by his family members and delivered during a recent game day visit. The cotton is a visual focal point for the piece, which took Abraham about three months to complete.
Abraham’s uncle, Toney Bacote, drove down from Hartsville and was taken by the piece. “I know exactly where they came from,” he said.
And while Abraham will be happy to sell most of his work to prospective patrons, he’s not ready to part with “151″ — at least not right now.
Abraham was encouraged by the turnout for the event, which he hopes is the next step toward his goal of becoming a renowned artist.
“It’s always exciting to have a community that’s supporting me, on and off the field,” Abraham said. “That’s always good. There’s always room to improve but just having the people around me, especially my good friends, we always keep each other pushing.”
