This selection of works by Jonathan Calm, Rodney Ewing, Oliver Lee Jackson, Bovey Lee, and Diane Roby revels the rewards of seeing deeply and carefully. Each piece holds a universe of embedded images and ideas impossible to see with a cursory glance. Some works necessitate a consideration of historical context and some present small-scale and minute details that implore the viewer to get close and spend time.

Jonathan Calm’s cyanotype prints, A Moment in the New China Club, NV, (2022), and Tuskegee Army Airfield (2020) are from the series Blue Black History. In these works, Calm uses a 19th-century photo process to look at significant locations where the historical context is paramount to the work. Rodney Ewing utilizes multi-layered Silkscreen imagery on ledger paper to reveal the ways commerce and production in the pursuit of advancement have relied on the exploitation of the Black body.

His work Faded (2022) features a schematic of a cotton gin, a device that expanded the practice of slavery by expediting the separation of cotton fibers from the seeds. Oliver Lee Jackson’s work lives in the space between figuration and abstraction, calling for the viewer to attune to the language of painting itself, and a willingness to take the time to do so. The intricate cut-paper work of Bovey Lee includes countless small details, woven together to create complete universes unto themselves. Diane Roby’s small works on paper contain dense and intricate line work that need close investigation to uncover the imagery hidden within.