Ayé Aton (1940–2017) was born Robert Underwood in Versailles, Kentucky. His artistic career had its start in early-sixties Chicago, where he befriended a group of older men who played checkers and discussed philosophy in Washington Park on the South Side. Aton’s interests proved esoteric, and he was directed to a man whom the group knew as Sunny Ray, who had by that time relocated to New York. Sun Ra became his de facto mentor from afar, and Aton soon took on his own chosen name—an homage to the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun—and began painting, becoming known for his colorful, otherworldly Afrocentric murals in homes and businesses across Chicago. By 1972, he’d moved to Philadelphia, joining Ra’s co-op and his Arkestra as percussionist; he went on to play in various ensembles in Chicago and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. From the nineties to his death, he composed hundreds of smaller-scale acrylics on paper and canvas. Afrika collects seven of these rarely seen later works, composed between 2002 and 2014. 

—AG

All photographs by Cary Whittier, courtesy of MARCH and the Estate of Ayé Aton.