Roland Ayers (1932–2014) was born in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia and trained at the Philadelphia College of the Arts (now University of the Arts). His unique style and iconography responded to the social and political climate of his time, while he also made reference to the broader canons of art history. Ayers’s free-flowing compositions— heavily influenced by the improvisational nature of jazz—merged dreams, memories, and the landscapes of Philadelphia into fantastical images.
