Her androgynous clay figures, often adorned with found and manufactured objects, reflect on family, gender, and marginality, interrogating how these themes shape identity. Works like Considerati A (2021) function as vessels— formed from earth, transformed into stone-like materials, and destined to return to the earth—embodying a cyclical process that mirrors life itself. Rose B. Simpson’s multimedia practice explores the figure through Indigenous influences and the postcolonial experience. Her androgynous clay figures, often adorned with found and manufactured objects, serve as reflections on family, gender, and marginality. These works interrogate how these themes shape our understanding of self. Dream 2 (2022), a large ceramic mask, was part of Simpson’s project Dream House , where dreams and psychological space offered pathways for self-contemplation. The mask symbolizes boundaries, revealing only what the artist chooses to share while prompting critical observation. Created during her residency at The Fabric Workshop and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Dream 2 invites viewers to reflect on personal and cultural narratives. Through this interplay of materiality and symbolism, Simpson’s sculptures evoke resilience, transformation, and continuity, bridging ancestral knowledge with contemporary expression.
Creases and folds create a sense of depth, reminiscent of his Drapes and undulating canvases, while vertical washes of pigment mimic pleats and light- play. By saturating the paper with luminous color, Gilliam transformed his watercolor compositions into tactile, sculptural objects rather than mere images. Gilliam was the first Black artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale in 1972.
Shinique Smith (b. 1971, Baltimore, Maryland, lives and works in Los Angeles, California)
Shinique Smith is celebrated for her monumental fabric sculptures and abstract paintings that fuse calligraphy, collage, and textiles. Her work explores consumption, identity, and spirituality, revealing unexpected connections across cultures and histories. Smith’s textile sculptures are deeply personal, incorporating bundled clothing from her own wardrobe, as well as materials from friends, family, and found objects. Bale Variant No. 0026 (Solar Flares) (2022), featuring bursts of color across its fabric form, debuted in STARGAZERS at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece includes clothing from her ex-husband, emphasizing textiles as markers of identity and transformation. Smith is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and recently exhibited in Social Fabrics: Magic & Memory at Rele Gallery in Los Angeles. Through her innovative use of material and form, she invites viewers to consider the emotional and cultural weight embedded in everyday objects.
Sam Gilliam (b. 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi, d. 2022, Washington, D.C.)
Sam Gilliam was a groundbreaking innovator in postwar American painting. Emerging from the Washington, D.C. art scene in the mid-1960s, he disrupted the ethos of Color School painting through a series of formal breakthroughs, culminating in his iconic Drape paintings, which expanded the possibilities of Abstract Expressionism. His late-career work, Solstice III (2016), reflects his ongoing experimentation with color, texture, materiality, and scale. Here, the paper itself becomes the color, rather than merely serving as a surface.
Steve Locke (b. 1963, Cleveland, OH, lives and works in New York)
Steve Locke’s series Homage to the Auction Block , including Homage to the Auction Block #122a-isis (2022), appropriates American modernist Josef Albers’s iconic series, Homage to the Square , to confront the absence of Black artists in Modernism’s canon.
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