Akinsanya Kambon is a ceramicist, painter and draftsman whose work illuminates African histories, spiritual traditions and narratives of resistance. Best known for his sculptural vessels and figures, Kambon transforms clay into storytelling devices, their surfaces wrapped with sequential scenes of revolution, resilience and ritual. Born Mark Teemer, he adopted the name Akinsanya Kambon after tracing his Yoruban ancestry—a discovery that informs both the subjects of his work and his spiritually rooted, Pan-African inspired process.
For over forty years, Kambon has worked in clay, creating ceramics distinguished by iridescent, metallic glazes and richly narrative surfaces. He employs a Western adaptation of the Japanese raku technique, a volatile process in which glazed bisqueware is heated and then rapidly cooled in containers filled with combustible materials such as eucalyptus leaves and hay. The variables of heat, smoke and timing produce spontaneous and unique surface effects––an alchemical transformation that Kambon embraces as spiritual. To this day, he approaches each firing ceremonially, allowing smoke and spirit to shape the final form. “The spirit tells me what to make,” he has said. “I let the spirit guide the work.”
His sculptures often depict figures from African cosmologies, slave revolts and revolutionary movements, focusing on underrepresented or erased histories. Equestrian, John Randall, Buffalo Soldier (2012) highlights the Buffalo Soldiers, a group of African Americans who served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Kambon’s many research trips to Africa—including time spent living with the Bambara in Mali and the Mende in Sierra Leone—led him to incorporate African deities and spiritual figures into his portrayals of transnational histories.
In 1966, Kambon was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Vietnam until 1968 as an infantryman and combat illustrator. During his deployment, he and fellow Black servicemen endured racism within the military ranks. It was through conversations with his peers that his political consciousness deepened. While abroad, Kambon sketched scenes that would become The Black Panther Coloring Book (1968), which brought attention to racial inequality and social injustice, though it was later mischaracterized as a tool of FBI disinformation.
Upon returning to California, Kambon joined the Sacramento Chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, where he was appointed Lieutenant of Culture and oversaw the Party’s newspaper. In 1970, Kambon was arrested and later acquitted in the high profile “Oak Park Four” case. Following his release, he enrolled at Sacramento City College, where he studied with artists Greg Kondos and Al Bird, who first introduced him to raku ceramics. Kambon earned his MA in Art from California State University, Fresno in 1976 and taught ceramics at California State University, Long Beach for twenty-six years.
Akinsanya Kambon (b. 1946, Sacramento, California) lives and works in Long Beach, California. In Spring 2026, Kambon will be the subject of a major survey exhibition at SculptureCenter in New York. Ortuzar will present a concurrent solo booth at Frieze New York 2026 with Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles. In 2023, Kambon was the recipient of the Hammer Museum’s Mohn Award, which the institution presents to one participating artist in its Made in L.A biennial and for which they produce a monograph, forthcoming in 2026. Kambon is the recipient of awards from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (2022); City of Long Beach (1996, 1994); County of Los Angeles (1994); and California Wellness Foundation, Violence Prevention Initiative (1993).
Oral History interview with Akinsanya Kambon by the Archives of American Art
