George Clinton

In the 1970s and ’80s, George Clinton reshaped music and performance with Parliament-Funkadelic, forging the sound and spectacle of funk that became foundational to hip-hop and contemporary pop. His sonic and visual vocabulary has influenced generations— from Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ice Cube. Clinton and P-Funk received the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and his collaboration on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly earned a Grammy nomination in 2016.

 

Clinton has made visual art for nearly as long as he has made music. His dog-shaped autograph (begun in 1971) evolved from tour-bus “doodles” into a sustained studio practice that translates the psychedelic worlds of his albums and stage sets into painting and drawing. Over the past decade, he has developed a vivid body of work that deepens the characters, symbols, and cosmology of the P-Funk universe.

 

Working in acrylic, spray paint, text, and collage, Clinton layers media with the improvisational energy central to his music, producing electric compositions that carry the vibrancy of a stage performance and the rhythmic cadence of an iconic lyricist.

 

Clinton has presented solo exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah), Jeffrey Deitch (Los Angeles), the George Washington Carver Museum (Austin), the National Museum of African American Music (Nashville), and the Oakland Museum of California. His iconic “Mothership”—the centerpiece stage prop of Parliament-Funkadelic—is on permanent view at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Forthcoming presentations include Mariane Ibrahim, Paris (October 2025) and a solo exhibition at Somerset House, London (Summer 2026).