“Sighting Black Girlhood”
New Local Space (NLS)
The exhibition “Sighting Black Girlhood” opened with two life-size painted portraits of Black women who commanded assembly and set the tone for the show. Tishana Fisher’s Yes, I am BLACK, 2022, portrayed a deep-brown-skinned art student, Ashtaina Stewart, in a purple ombré dress, slumped in a dresser chair in front of a rust-orange sheet. Unpoised and unbossed, she holds a brush to her hair with a limp wrist. On a nearby wall, Camille Chedda’s Portrait of a Young Artist (Abigail Sweeney), 2022, showed another Black beauty, painted in grisaille, standing tall in ripped jeans with her Rapunzel