Pictured above is Cynthia Wagner’s piece, “When the Cows Come Home,” featured in her exhibition of Finding A Way Home that will be on display at the Gadsden Museum of Art starting September 2. (Courtesy of Gadsden Museum of Art)
08-25-2022
On Friday, September 2, the Gadsden Museum of Art will host an opening reception for the following exhibits: Cynthia Wagner’s show Finding A Way Home located on the first floor in our main gallery, and Phoebe Burns’ show The Angry Black Women/ A Black Hole In A White Space exhibited in the courtyard gallery and on the museum’s first floor.
Wagner’s Finding A Way Home exhibition is a collection of mixed media pieces taken from different bodies of works. Wagner considers herself a visual narrator telling stories through several artistic mediums. She uses a combination of paint, photography, digital collage, found objects and a variety of other mixed materials. Her works explore the similarities in the way that both the human brain and computer technology create fictional worlds.
Burns’ The Angry Black Women/ A Black Hole In A White Space is comprised of two separate bodies of work. The Angry Black Woman is a mixed-media exhibit that explores a side of the Black female experience hardly ever told in depth. Burns proclaims that Black women are more than just an angry and loud stereotype. They feel joy, excitement, fear, frustration and anger. In every art piece, there is a bridge between the past and the present because history constantly repeats itself. The long history of trauma that burdened the Black woman’s ancestors has morphed into new forms of oppression.
A Black Hole in a White Space is a photo series named after modern day laws that are affecting Black people to this day, asking the question, “What is it like being Black in America?”
Artwork from Sarah Cusimano Miles and Joi West will be on display along with Mustard Seed Tees presenting an artist demonstration in front of the museum. The opening reception will take place during Downtown Gadsden’s First Friday event from 5-to 8 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
All exhibits will be on display Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. until September 23. Please visit gadsdenmuseum.com for more information and upcoming artists.