On view, January 13 – March 11, 2023, the exhibition continues Gbadebo's years-long exploration of her ancestral origins centered on the plantation on which her forbearers were enslaved and currently buried, called True Blue in Fort Motte, South Carolina. Gbadebo's interrogation of this lineage through her work encompasses her signature multimedia works crafted from indigo, rice paper, cotton, human hair, and new ceramic pieces fabricated from the soil where her enslaved ancestors were buried. These will be displayed alongside historical artifacts salvaged from antebellum architectural fragments from sites built on the labor of her forebears. The multimedia exhibition will debut at Claire Oliver Gallery before traveling to the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis throughout 2023-24. "I've been dedicated to exploring materials, like rice, indigo, and cotton, whose origins as commodities were born of violence and enslavement," states Gbadebo. "My newest work is even more intimate and personal: I have crafted ceramic vessels from the very land that my ancestors once cleared as a way to commemorate what they endured and as a way to activate the ground, using it and shaping it.
January 17, 2023
