The McColl Center presents Dark & Divine, a group exhibition curated by Dasia Hood, featuring artists Dionna Bright, Chad Cartwright, Patrick Sainte, Jerry Taliaferro, Darian Parham, Jason Dawkins, and Ida M. Irby.
Dark & Divine is a bold reawakening of the Black artist’s connection to nudity, exploring its cultural and spiritual significance across the African-American Diaspora. The exhibition challenges the historical distortions imposed by colonization, society, and media that have hypersexualized and desecrated Black nudity, creating a dialogue of shame around sensuality and self-image.
Through collaborative artist-model portraits, mixed media works, and personal storytelling, the featured artists reclaim Black bodies as sacred, powerful, and deserving of reverence. Each work reflects on nudity through spiritual, societal, and personal lenses, using it as a vehicle for self-expression, healing, and a redefinition of beauty.
Dark & Divine centers Black divinity as the perspective for exploring sensuality and nudity, inviting viewers to reconnect with their own bodies and sexuality as vessels of freedom, intimacy, and the divine. This transformative exhibition fosters new conversations about the inherent beauty and sacredness of Black bodies, offering a space for liberation and reverence.
