Exhibitions by Southern Black Artists
MICHI MEKO | LYNTHIA EDWARDS
CHARLIE LUCAS | KERRIGAN CASEY
JASON MCCALL | CORY PATTON
On Display at TVMA February 13 – April 2
Exhibitions with six Southern Black artists, exploring diverse experiences within Black identity.
Exhibition Hours:
Monday-Friday 9am-5 pm; Saturday 10am-3pm
Admission:
$5 for Adults; $3 for Students
Free for TVAA Members and for Healthcare and Education Workers
About Michi Meko
Michi Meko, a Florence native, is an Atlanta-based artist who has earned national recognition. He has exhibited at museums across the country and was featured as an Artist in Residence on the streaming service Hulu in 2019.
Following a near drowning in 2015, Meko’s work began to focus on “the African American experience of navigating public spaces while remaining buoyant within them.” Meko says that his work explores how the “barrage of images” on social media of African Americans being threatened in public spaces “simulates an experience of drowning.” His exhibition at TVMA is titled When It’s Black Outside: Notes from the Before Times, and it has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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About Lynthia Edwards
Lynthia Edwards is a Birmingham artist whose paintings and collages are “inspired by the ordinary existence of black girls raised in the south.” Edwards says her work expresses the “emotions, thoughts and ideas about the world (each girl) lives in” and aims to “ignite a dialogue amongst the viewers that glorify black girl magic.”
Edwards received attention from the media and the art world when one of her portraits of Senator John Lewis was purchased by the civil rights pioneer himself. In 2020, she also designed voter registration posters for the DC Sparkle Squad project.
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About Charlie Lucas
Charlie Lucas is a world-renowned Alabama folk artist. His sculptures and paintings draw from both the people and the land of Alabama’s Black Belt region and from the iron and steel industry of the Birmingham District.
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About Kerrigan Casey
Kerrigan Casey is an emerging artist living in Florence, AL. She uses her “own life, music, and culture” to challenge “the Shoals’ perceptions of art” and to explore “beauty and blackness in modern art and free expression.”
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About Jason McCall
Jason McCall is a poet and teacher, and the author of the poetry book A Man Ain’t Nothin’ , which is the focus of his exhibition. McCall holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He is an Alabama native, and he teaches at the University of North Alabama.
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About Cory Patton
Cory Patton, from Tuscaloosa, AL, is the cover artist for Jason McCall’s poetry book A Man Ain’t Nothing. He uses a wide range of paints, brushes, and found objects in his paintings. Some of his paintings will be displayed alongside McCall’s poetry for this exhibition.
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