Some of Palm Beach County's most talented Black visual artists are putting on a rare and thought-provoking community exhibition in Riviera Beach.
Reframed is an artist-driven curation of multi-disciplinary artworks — from abstract paintings to digital surrealism — on large-scale canvases that stretch across the white walls of the Riviera Beach Marina.
Featuring nuanced depictions of various Black experiences in an intimate setting, the pop-up exhibit is something art lovers in the majority-Black city don't often have a chance to see without traveling to a gallery or museum in a neighboring city.
Harold Caudio, the curator and visual artist known for his big portraits of Black cultural icons and faces of injustice — Bob Marley, Beyonce, Trayvon Martin — layered entirely out of Skittles candy, told WLRN the Reframed exhibit aims to create more spaces for the full expressions of multi-ethnic Black men and women, who often reframe art as an accessible tool for all social classes and educational backgrounds.
"Art is like a universal language,” Caudio told WLRN. "So I wanted them to come here and leave differently, like thinking differently and to bring that in the community so it can spread like wildfire, hopefully,” he said. "People in the community are sweet, colorful people."
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For the pop-up exhibit, Caudio partnered with Riviera Beach — a city currently on a public campaign to “reimagine” itself, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to redevelop many of its municipal facilities, libraries and community centers.
Caudio gathered some of the top Black artists around the county, each with their own unique storytelling abilities, creative purpose and wide-ranging fanbases.
Local filmmaker and author Oliver J. Stewart, best known for his “If You See This You're Beautiful (IYSTYB)” art and book campaign, displayed his surrealist photography, The Creation of the Creative — a floating, oversized Black hand reaching out to a full-bodied Black man reaching back. It’s his recreation of Michelangelo's fresco painting of The Creation of Adam.
“I want little boys and girls to be inspired. I want them to see Black art. I want them to know that they're touched by God,” Stewart told WLRN. “That hand is their hand. And that they can see themselves in a higher light.”
One aim of his work is to reframe how people experience art. For Stewart, it’s about exposing the creative process, in the hope that people are inspired to undertake “even deeper research, and learn about older art and about history."
People were enamored by the opening night's live music accompanied by a solo classical ballet performance from 12-year-old phenom, Texas-based Morgan Ligon, who twirled her graceful hands and feet to the sky while supporting all of her young body weight on the tips of her feet.
The event paid special attention to the lived experiences of Black women and gave a nod to Women's History Month.
Painter Arielle Charis describes her art as a “visual diary" that “provokes and challenges” societal norms.
Her work often centers around goddess mythology and portraits of Black women who advocate for change. “When I started my [artist] journey, I needed a hero for me,” Charis told WLRN.
“When people are really being vulnerable and expressing themselves and they're tapping in and they're being honest, that vulnerability comes out,” Charis said. “And it says it in one way or another, through the truth of light. Color. It's light.”
Jasmine Nichole Azor describes herself as an “emotional artist” who focuses on digital art, with vibrant but also dark images of women: crying, happy, naked and even dismembered. She explores their full range of sensuality, often in “their vulgar positions,” she told WLN.
"I only know things from a woman's perspective. And so, I always want to find a way to voice out the things that women are oppressed on or things that women aren't allowed to speak on or things that women feel that they may not be able to say,” Azor said.
“I want them [art goers] to be uncomfortable. And a lot of people are uncomfortable when they see my art because of the nudity that I display. And I want them to actually hone in on why they feel uncomfortable about it.”
She wants her art to “stimulate something in people.”
Rounding up the event are other self-taught, mixed-media artists at the exhibit, including Whitney Joseph, Wanita Dixon, and Dolie Fiyez, who draws his inspiration from his time in prison, focuses on themes surrounding isolation and uses collages to explore Black history.
Digital visual artist Kemar Anthony wants art collectors to support and purchase more digital art, abstract moving pictures played on screens that are inserted inside a physical portrait frame.
His piece, For Manifesting Purposes, illustrates money flowing upward out of a man’s head.
“The surface level is like money on my mind,” he told WLRN. "That's what you see, but at a deeper level, it's kinda like affirmation. Art takes you places you've never imagined and opens up other perspectives in other people's mind."
Anthony’s perspective about art encapsulated the overall sentiment from many of the artists who displayed their work “I just want to evoke emotion through everything I do, visually, audio, musically,” he said.
IF YOU GO
Reframed art exhibit runs through March 21, free to the public
TIME: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
LOCATION: Riviera Beach Marina, 200 E 13th St, Riviera Beach, FL 33404
