Artist: Adrienne Elise Tarver

Adrienne Elise Tarver is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist. Following the creative impulses of collage, she uses both personal imagery and found photographs as source materials for the paintings in this exhibition.

She who sits is Tarver’s first solo public art exhibition and features six new works that continue her exploration of the centrality of the Black matriarch. Each subject is seated in an intimate environment and each painting is inspired by the artist’s personal archive as well as media archives–especially that of Ebony Magazine, a cornerstone of culture, news, and entertainment. Tarver’s imagery positions the act of sitting as a reclamation of rest and power. The work nods to the ways activists have used sitting in public space as a tool to shift the socio-political dynamic in the United States. For decades, sit-ins have been used by Black activists to enact direct change within legal systems that aimed to confine and erase Black presence. The seated subjects in Tarver’s paintings quietly confront passengers at bus shelters, which in turn offer moments of physical respite and restful contemplation.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: She who sits is curated by Jenée-Daria Strand, Assistant Curator at Public Art Fund.