Opening Reception: Feb 21, 6-8pm
Open to the public and free.

Exhibition on view: Feb 22 - March 6 
Regular gallery hours: Mon - Fri, 9am - 5pm

Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery

850 West 37th St, Los Angeles, CA, 90089 

About the Exhibition

Clarity & Opacity captures the complexity of race retrieval by confronting African roots despite sustained Western conditioning. Pulling from over a month of research in Dakar, Senegal, where her father’s family is from and resides, Jayna Dias acknowledges her distance from Senegalese culture to form a new understanding of identity. By depicting scenes from the trip through her lens — a Senegalese-American feeling foreign to Senegal — Dias reconfigures her experience through painting, drawing, performance and video while also incorporating fabrics, scents, jewelry and decor from Senegal to portray her relationship with the country. The title derives from Édouard Glissant’s call for “the right to opacity for everyone,” affirming that Black identity cannot and should not be defined, certain or transparent. Clarity & Opacity embraces the compound of both what is clear and what is uncertain when it comes to understanding culture. 

International travel and research supported through USC Roski Macomber Travel Grant.

Image: Untitled, 2023, oil, molding paste and fabric on wood panel; 28 x 36in.