Anthony Mills Swedish American, b. 1972

Anthony Mills, as a featured performer at La Biennale di Venezia 2015, All the Worlds Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor, had a two-month residency for Jason Moran’s work songs / installation. Mills performed for two months, from the end of June to the end of July, and then again in October until closing in November.

From opera to hip hop and authentic Americana storytelling, Mills’ vocal abilities reflect a palette of colour also visualised for the creation of drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Though largely self-taught, Mills’ mother is also a fine artist who has generously been a positive resource and solicited advice-giver. Anthony Mills’s style could be described as Virginic Street Style albeit edgy and colourful. As a classical voice major at The Manhattan School of Music, Mills has worked and toured with Harry Belafonte, Amy Winehouse, Krs-One, Sizzla, Grace Bumbry and Leela James. Somewhere along the road, Anthony felt that he needed to tell the stories of his heritage – from his French-Creole grandmother to the blue-collar great-grandparents who laid their roots in the factories of Akron, Flint and Detroit. Drawing on traditional plantation song storytelling as well as more contemporary influences, Anthony Mills channels the complex inertia of the Deep South.

He has had over two dozen solo exhibitions over the last decade in Scandinavia, has painted live on TV4 several times during Malou Von Sivers’s “Efter Tio” program and was also a featured muralist for the Stockholm Jazz festival as well as Jazz Klubb Fasching. Anthony is a member of Konstnärernas Riksorganisation (KRO).