Speaking in Tongues Reception & Curator Talk

Join us to celebrate the exhibition Speaking in Tongues featuring artists Toni Kersey, Patricia Renee Thomas, and Lavett Ballard.

Speaking in Tongues, curated by Michael Clemmons, unites Toni Kersey, Patricia Renee’ Thomas and Lavett Ballard for an exhibition that demonstrates a visually compelling dialogue. These artists negotiate a diverse range of media to exemplify the infinite language, narratives, realities and evidence of being, inclusive in the lived experiences and histories of women of the African diaspora.

In her essay Speaking in Tongues: Dialogics, Dialectics, and the Black Woman Writer’s Literary Tradition, Mae Gwendolyn Henderson contends the ability of African American women to speak in tongues brings their voices and experiences into power and a unique consciousness.

In their creative practices Kersey, Thomas and Ballard masterfully craft distinct visual voices in textile quilts, painting, and collages on wood with a unique treatment of materials that is sculptural and epitomizes a wealth of images, narratives, and expression. The work of these artists is not culturally and ancestrally uniform. Their visual voices and experiences are faceted, subtle, detailed narratives, histories, concepts, and perceptions on Blackness, which speak in tongues for your discernment.