"Alexandria Smith: A Litany for Survival" & "Ja’Tovia Gary: Giverny I (Négresse Impériale)" exhibitions open to the public

November 8, 2018–January 27, 2019 | Opening Reception: Sat., November 10 @ 5:00-7:00 p.m. Stone Gallery 855 Commonwealth Avenue Tuesday–Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m. A Litany for Survival, Alexandria Smith’s first solo exhibition in Boston, is an installation of recent figure-based paintings and drawings that explore black female subjectivity. Smith’s tonally rich canvases often centralize pairs of female figures that reside within environments that are subtly political and at times, intentionally nondescript. Depicted in profile, Smith’s figures simultaneously appear as a mirror image of a single form and as a set of twins. In these painterly acts of doubling, Smith visualizes multiple states of being, also suggesting how concepts of hybridity and duality underpin identity construction. A Litany for Survival draws its title from the Audre Lorde poem of the same name, reminding us that the representation of the black female body is always political. Working within a primary palette of black, blues, purples, and greys, Smith’s paintings illuminate the complexities of black identity through subtle gradations of color, dark light, and shadow.