In Search of the Black Fantastic is an exhibition of new work by Massachusetts-based artist Karmimadeebora McMillan. Existing in a space between abstraction and representation, the paintings imagine an expansive landscape that, rather than waiting for activation by the figure, exists as a character in its own right. The Black Fantastic, a term coined by curator and writer Ekow Eshun, is “less a genre or a movement than a way of seeing, shared by artists who grapple with the legacy of slavery and the inequities of racialized contemporary society by conjuring new narratives of Black possibility.” In McMillan’s paintings, impossible pathways, cosmic imagery, growth, and change vibrate among glowing colors and patterns, creating spaces that invite a radically new way of living and being, and opening up sites for a new range of potentialities.
The exhibition will be on view in the Jewett Art Gallery from Sept. 3 through Oct. 14. The gallery is free to visit and open to the public 7 days a week, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. See here for more information about visiting campus. Contact Gallery Director Samara Pearlstein (spearls2@wellesley.edu , 781-283-2043) to arrange a guided walk-through of the show or with any other questions.