ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

A solo online exhibition by Qiana Mestrich.  By integrating the outdoor studio, staged portraiture, still life, and family photography, Mestrich externalizes her thoughts around recent political, social, and cultural discussions on white supremacy and Black consciousness. 

“I was inspired to create this work during a visit to a museum with my children, when we encountered a towering statue of Pandora in front of a large window. In Greek mythology, Pandora is the first woman created by the gods and this sculpture (made in 1871 by Chauncey Bradley Ives) depicts her in the act of opening the box/jar containing humanity’s evils.

Despite her divine origin and childlike curiosity, Pandora’s misfortune is allegorically and literally giving birth to civilization’s “dark” tendencies. Pandora’s marmoreal overbearance inspired me to create photographs that reflect the enforcement of classical ideals of beauty and the production of a normality of whiteness regularly on display in our art institutions. . . With Thrall, I endorse the Black Mother’s role as Creator, Author and Photographer. She is no longer hidden as a prop or forced labor. She is superhuman and in control of the image, utilizing the home and immediate environment as her studio.” – Qiana Mestrich

Some images in Thrall allude to whiteness as a blanketing, nearly invisible pressure. The first four photographs in this series reflect this obscurity– as if the viewer is peering into a foggy space, looking through a window but not seeing the entire picture or object underneath. Once the mist has cleared, Mestrich refuses the standard visual representations of mother and child.  She does not appear in the photographs nor does she record the events of her home life. Collaborating with her children, she allows them to dance, be unruly, wondrous and curious in Nature.  Her compassionate, protective role as Mother or Creator, mirrors her own upbringing and awareness of the world as a Buddhist. 

GALLERY