CRAFTING BLACKNESS

Through These Hands

Samuel Dunson. REP Da’SHI, 2025. Mixed pigment media, vinyl, buttons, and faux gemstones on handcrafted textile base; 34 × 34 in. Courtesy of the artist. ©Samuel Dunson. Image courtesy of the artist

Through These Hands: Crafting Material Visions

Frist Art Museum
February 5 – May 9, 2027

Curators:

Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay, Director, Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University

Dr. Cynthia Gadsden, Associate Professor of Art History at Tennessee State University

Michael J. Ewing, Associate Curator, Frist Art Museum

For more information visit: https://fristartmuseum.org/exhibition/through-these-hands/

Through These Hands: Crafting Material Visions features the work of four Tennessee-based artists whose innovate creative practices engage with Black craft traditions: Brittney Boyd Bullock, Samuel Dunson, Desmond Lewis, and Althea Murphy-Price. Together, they formulate material languages that integrate personal narratives with cultural memory to express distinctive visions. The exhibition consists of more than 20 works, including sculptures, textile assemblages, 3D-printed forms, repurposed furniture, and more.

As part of the Crafting Blackness research initiative, led by Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, Through These Hands seeks to expand how craft and Black creative labor are understood within American art history. By foregrounding innovative craft practices and the artists who sustain them, this exhibition repositions craft as a vital and evolving field within contemporary art.

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