McArthur Binion (b. 1946, Macon, MS); is celebrated for his innovative approach to art that merges collage, drawing, and painting into deeply personal narratives. His works are autobiographical in nature, featuring layers of minimalist patterns meticulously applied over a hidden substrate of personal documents and photographs. These range from copies of his birth certificate and pages from his address book to evocative snapshots from his childhood and found images of historical lynchings. These elements form the foundational base of his art, obscured and transformed by the structured grids of oil stick he meticulously applies.

At first glance, Binion’s pieces appear as monochromatic, minimalist abstractions, however, upon closer inspection, the uniform grids dissolve into a tapestry of meticulously hand-drawn lines, revealing fragments of Binion's personal history and identity. Binion’s artistic trajectory is informed by his early training as a writer, evident in the deliberate layering of information and the poetic resonance of his titles. His compositions impose a disciplined order on the chaotic layers of personal history, offering glimpses of his birth certificate or his mother's visage amid the meticulously structured grid. This tension between structure and spontaneity parallels the improvisational quality of jazz music, where the disciplined framework of composition meets the expressive freedom of performance.

McArthur Binion received his B.F.A. from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI in 1971 and his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1973. His work is in numerous public and private collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Wayne State University, Detroit, MI; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY to name a few.