We've complied a list of national and international solo art exhibitions of work by Black women. This fall and winter take the time to celebrate and appreciate art created by Black women with this guide.
Between Bloodlines and Floodlines
Exhibition by artist Tameka NorrisNow through October 2, 2015
Gallery 1600 SCAD, Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA
The exhibition features a body of work that explores the artist’s response and experience of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans. Experiencing displacement firsthand and observing the impact Katrina had on her community and family deeply affected Norris. These experiences led to “Dun Floated Away,” a painting of her grandmother’s house that was destroyed, and which is a precursor to her “Post-Katrina” series. In this series Norris appropriates textiles (such as bed sheets and tablecloths) from her childhood home, stitching them together as foundations for her paintings or turning them into soft sculptures. The large-scale paintings on exhibition foreground Norris’s aggressive mark-making style, in which she recreates the landscape and familiar areas of her former home. Working from memory and photographs, the works become journal entries of sorts, marked by firsthand accounts and autobiographical narratives.
Vertical Elevated Oblique
Exhibition by artist Martine SymsNow through November 1, 2015
99 Bowery, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10002
Bridget Donahue presents Vertical Elevated Oblique, a new body of work from Martine Syms. For her first solo show with the gallery, Syms was inspired by a riff on a popular joke. “Everybody wanna be a black woman but nobody wanna be a black woman.” Using the 17th century text Chirologia: Or the Natural Language of the Hand as a guide she created an inventory of gestures for performance.
con-vHER-sa-tions
Exhibition hosted by Tasha DougeFriday, October 2, 2015 at 2:00 PM - Saturday, October 3, 2015 at 5:00 PM
Rogue Space, 508 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001
For 2 days, visitors are welcomed into an open art gallery, where they can freely explore and take part in this interactive exhibition. (Visitors have the option to come on either day or both days.) The theme is Women Empowerment, but in order to be empowered, we have to talk about everything. This includes the beauty of our diversity, but also the things that plague us as women. The art will be provocative and is meant to elicit authentic, raw and at times, uncomfortable feelings. From those feelings, the goal is to spark open and honest conversations. Overall, the hope is one will emerge with a better sense of what the female experience encompasses which in turn, leads to understanding and better connections. Everyone, 16 and older, is welcome to attend.
Proceeds from this event will benefit the Alliance for Lupus Research and the Endometriosis Foundation of America.
Still Tickin'
Exhibition by artist Betye SaarNow through November 15, 2015
Museum Het Domein, Kapittelstraat 6 6131 ER Sittard, The Netherlands
The American artist Betye Saar (Los Angeles, 1926) is among the most prominent artists of her generation. Since the 1960s she has gained a reputation for feminist work that reflects on African American identity, spirituality and the connectedness between different cultures. This retrospective is Betye Saar’s first museum solo in Europe. The artist has structured a probing exhibition which features older and more recent pieces, works on paper, sculptures, and a number of specially-constructed installations. Saar’s work, which covers six decades, is displayed according to three central themes: nostalgia and memory; mysticism and ritual; and political and racial representation.
Art Is...
Exhibition by artist Lorraine O'GradyNow through Oct 25, 2015
The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street New York, New York 10027
Over the course of more than three decades, artist and cultural critic Lorraine O’Grady has won acclaim for her installations, performances and texts addressing the subjects of diaspora, hybridity and black female subjectivity. Born in Boston in 1934 and trained at Wellesley College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as an economist, literary critic and fiction writer, O’Grady had careers as a U.S. government intelligence analyst, a translator and a rock music critic before turning her attention to the art world in 1980.
Howardena Pindell
Exhibition by artist Howardena PindellNow through December 5, 2015
Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, 350 Spelman Lane, Atlanta, GA 30314
Howardena Pindell is an outspoken artist, writer, curator, and professor whose career reflects the spirit of a creative risk taker, seasoned traveler, and an advocate for equality. She has been an influential figure in the art world for over 40 years. The solo exhibition Howardena Pindell features her oblong and un-stretched canvases, as well as her experimentation with hole-punched dots, hand drawn arrows, printed text, and personal postcards. The exhibition spotlights Pindell’s dynamic oeuvre that blends her abstract formal sensibilities, personal memory, and activism.
Charlotte Collects Elizabeth Catlett: A Centennial Celebration
Exhibition of art by Elizabeth CatlettNow through December 31, 2015
Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, 551 S. Tryon Street Charlotte, NC
This exhibition includes examples of Elizabeth Catlett's two- and three-dimensional works, as well as photographs of Catlett throughout her life. Charlotte Collects Elizabeth Catlett: A Centennial Celebration is a centennial commemoration of Elizabeth Catlett’s life and work. The exhibition includes examples of her two-dimensional and three-dimensional works, as well as photographs of Catlett throughout her life. The narrative also highlights the show coming from, and reflecting, Charlotteans’ appreciation and collection of her work.
The Journey North
Exhibition by artist Karen HamptonNow through December 20, 2015
Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, 98 College Hill Road Clinton, NY
A self-described “griot”—a keeper and transmitter of the genealogies of a people—Los Angeles–based textile artist Karen Hampton employs historical memory drawn from the stories of her family to shed new light on the colonial past. Her work, which uses new and traditional techniques and materials, also draws from her own experiences as a person of African, Caribbean, and American descent and explores the essence of her being through cloth as her medium of choice. Touching on issues of displacement and transience, Hampton uses both needle and loom to create works embedded with references to her ancestral heritage.
Tales of the Conjure Woman
Exhibition by artist Renée StoutNow through December 20, 2015
Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, 98 College Hill Road Clinton, NY
This exhibition features recent work by Renée Stout, who is best known for her exploration of vestigial retentions of African cultural traditions in contemporary America. Through an array of works in various media, the artist has used the alter ego Fatima Mayfield, a fictitious herbalist/fortuneteller, as a vehicle to role-play and confront issues such as romantic relationships, social ills, and financial woes. Tales of the Conjure Woman continues this open, creative, and often humorous body of work, tapping into what Stout calls “the continuing need for self-discovery and the need to understand and make sense of human motives and the way we relate and respond to each other.”
Elizabeth Catlett: A Celebration of 100 Years and Elizabeth Catlett
Exhibition of art by Elizabeth CatlettNow through November 14, 2015
Main Changing Gallery and Blue Gallery, Hampton University Museum, Hampton, VA 23668
In celebration of Elizabeth Catlett's one hundredth birthday, the Hampton University Museum will highlight works on paper from our extensive Catlett collection. Noted for having the largest collection of Elizabeth Catlett works on paper Hampton is pleased to show some of our favorites that have been shown at Hampton or loaned to institutions throughout the United States along with twenty-five pieces that have never been shown at Hampton. Twenty-five works pulled from art storage were framed for this special year long commemoration of Ms. Catlett's life and work. The corresponding exhibition that will be held in the adjoining gallery, Elizabeth Catlett and the Hampton Art Tradition will include rarely seen works by Charles White, John Biggers, Samella Lewis, Persis Jennings and Annabelle Baker.
Wild World
Exhibition by artist Renée StoutNow through December 19, 2015
Hemphill Fine Arts 1515 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20005
In her fifth solo exhibition at Hemphill, Stout addresses a progression of themes, first inviting the viewer into a “Room of Spirits” which sets the stage for there being a presence beyond the self. Stout then introduces devices designed as a mechanical means to transfer magic or captured energy from one source to another. The artist asks “do I have the ability, if I try hard enough, to tap into a universal energy that’s more enlightened?” Stout’s hand-built machines, utilizing wire, wood, paint, and a myriad of found items, are systems of the mind powered by spiritual energy. Stout urges the viewer to embrace and believe in the presence of spiritual energy, capably presenting the tools of her own creation through which it works.
