Ayana V. Jackson, Consider the Sky and the Sea, 2019. Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.
New commercial gallery shows—from Baroque blackness in Chicago to flying saucers in London
"Christening the new Chicago gallery of former Seattle-based dealer Mariane Ibrahim, Ayana V. Jackson’s moodily lit self-portraits offer a powerful and haunting presentation of black femininity in Baroque brilliance. In previous photo series, the artist and filmmaker often re-staged archival images from colonial Africa as a way of recasting and reclaiming black identity using her own body. The works in this show, however, prove a departure as she instead introduces fictional characters based on African and African Diasporic water spirits, creating a mythical “aquatopia” centred around female power."
