American Art and Architectural History

PhD
Boston University

American Art and Architectural History

MA
Boston University

BA
Spelman College

Research Interests

American art and architecture; art of the African Diaspora; American photography; Black religious visual culture

Scholarly Presentations

Scholarly Presentations

Introductory Lecture, The Art of Politics and the Politics of the Public Lorraine Hansberry Symposium, Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, Howard University, Paper Title: “Shaping Space, Making Place: Towards a History of Black Public Art”, November 18, 2022.

Paper Presentation, Phillips Collection- Howard University Symposium on Alma W. Thomas and David C. Driskell, Paper Title: “Situating Alma W. Thomas & David C. Driskell in Washington, DC’s Mid-Twentieth Century Religious Art Landscape,” November 2021.

Paper Presentation, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery PORTAL Speakers Series, Paper Title: “Toward an African Methodist Episcopal Aesthetic Idyll: Art and Images at Wilberforce University, 1863-1914,” October 5, 2021.

Paper Presentation, 2021 John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art: Artists and American Communities, Then and Now, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Paper Title: “St. Luke's Episcopal Church as Cultural and Spiritual Capital in the Life of Alma Thomas,” September 23, 2021.

Keynote Address, Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) Center for Collaborative Teaching & Learning, Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, “Invisible Ink across Archival Pattern,” July 28, 2020.

Paper Presentation, 2019 John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art: Artists and American Communities, Then and Now, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Paper Title: “Between Myth, Evidence and Propaganda: Comparing Twentieth Century Approaches to Photographing the African American Church,” February 8, 2019.

Paper Presentation, Presenter for 50th Anniversary Symposium for the Shrine of the Black Madonna, Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan, Lecture Title: “Black Madonna and Child Mural as Catalyst” April 29, 2017.

Undergraduate

Art Appreciation (ARTH 161)

Black Art and Culture (ARTH 163)

Internship in Art History (ARTH 168)

Topics in Art Criticism (ARTH 167)

African American Art I (ARTH 178)

African American Art II (ARTH 179)

Research in Art History I (ARTH 181)

Research in Art History II (ARTH 182)

Trends and Ideas in African American Art (ARTH 189)

Black Women in Visual Culture (ARTH 195)

Contemporary Art (ARTH 197)

Graduate

Black Women in Visual Culture (ARHI 200)

African American Art I (ARHI 286)

Trends and Ideas in African American Art (ARHI 278)

Contemporary Art (ARHI 312)

2023 Genevieve Young Fellow in Writing, The Gordon Parks Foundation & Howard University

 2020-2021 Paul Mellon Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington. DC.

Publications

Works-In-Progress

Books

Patterns of Permanence: African Methodist Episcopal Architecture and Visual Culture (Book Manuscript in Progress).

Exhibition Catalogs & Edited Volumes

Editor, Temples of Hope: Gordon Parks at Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church,(Gordon Parks Foundation & Steidl, forthcoming 2024).

Published Book Chapters and Exhibition Catalog Essays

“‘Think and Pray’: Verbrycke Spiritual Church and Ella Watson’s Religious Worldview,” American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson, Casey Riley, ed. (New York: The Gordon Parks Foundation and Steidl, forthcoming January 2024) 

“Motion” (Section Introduction), Movements, Motions, Moments : Photographs of Religion and Spirituality from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Edited by Douglas Remley, (Washington, DC: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2023)

“Benny Andrews: Critically Constructing the American Figure,” Unforgettable: American Artists Reconsidered, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023).

“Afro-American Images: 1971 as Evidence: Charting Mid-Century African American Artists Networks,” Afro-American Images 1971: The Vision of Percy Ricks, Margaret Winslow, ed. (Delaware Art Museum, October 2021).

“Alma Thomas & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church,” Alma Thomas: Everything is Beautiful, Seth Feman and Jonathan Waltz, eds. (The Columbus Museum of Art, The Columbus Museum of Art, July 2021).

“People, Places and the Spirit World: Suzanne Jackson's Ecowomanist Art Practice,” Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades, Rachel Reese Ed. (Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA, October 2019).

“‘AfriCOBRA is a Continuum’: the 50 Year Legacy of the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists,” AfriCOBRA: Evolution of a Movement, (Baltimore: Galerie Myrtis, September 2018)

“James Phillips: A Retrospective,” James Phillips: Swirling Complexity into Culture, (College Park: University of Maryland College Park Art Galleries, 2017). <https://issuu.com/umucachiever/docs/james_phillips_catalog_2017>.

“Black Power and Black Madonna: Charting the Aesthetic Influence of Rev. Albert Cleage, Glanton Dowdell & the Shrine of the Black Madonna, #1,”Rev.  Albert B. Cleage, Jr. and of the Black Madonna and Child, Jawanza Clark, editor, (New York: Palgrave McMillian, 2016).

Journal Publications

“Larry W. Cook” Contact Sheet, Light Work Annual 2021, 208 (New York: Light Work, summer 2022).

“Object Lesson: Aaron Douglas’s Building More Stately Mansions,” commissioned by Manual 14 Fall/Winter 2020, 23-35.

 “Preserving the Will to Adorn: African American Stained Glass Art Traditions,” International Review of African American Art, Vol. 29, No. 3, Spring 2020.

“Constructing and Circulating Black Madonnas as Black Power: Charting the Aesthetic and Cultural Influence of Shrine of the Black Madonna, #1.” Black Theology Papers Project, 2(1), Nov 2019. <https://doi.org/10.7916/btpp.v2i1.3853>.

“The Rhythmic Synergy of James Phillips: Assessing a Legacy of Black Collective Art Practice,” International Review of African American Art, Fall 2018.

“Biography: Jeff Donaldson,” Callaloo, Vol 40, Art 2017.

“Who I Am and Why: Faith Ringgold & A Multi-Generational History of Artistic Creation,” International Review of African American Art Plus, Oct. 2013 <http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/Who-I-Am-and-Why>.