It Cut a Sky, Russo Lee Gallery, Portland, OR
Installation views of It Cut a Sky. This exhibition is a continuation of the ongoing series Migration Studies. It includes new print editions of lithographs from my time at Crow’s Shadow as a resident artist, as well as mixed media pieces. It Cut a Sky continues my ongoing series Migration Studies, Beauty Supply. This body of work connects my interest in tracing lost histories and homelands to the Beauty Supply store as a critical space of Black cultural production with its own set of aesthetics, desires, and complications. Each piece was made with resources available to me at the time. The show’s title is the most honest way I can describe the sensation of making this work. It is how I’ve come to describe transformative experiences more broadly and each of the works in It Cut a Sky are artifacts, or maybe evidences, of those moments of recognition and transformation.
Selected photos by Mario Gallucci. Addition photos courtesy of the artist.