In a Baltimore Exhibition, the Transformative Potential of Today’s Griots Emerges
Alanis Forde, “A Sea Bath” (2023), oil on canvas, 25 x 20 inches. All images courtesy of the artists and Galerie Myrtis, shared with permission
In a Baltimore Exhibition, the Transformative Potential of Today’s Griots Emerges
June 27, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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Stories have long helped us to understand the world and our place within it. For the western Sahel in West Africa, storytellers known as griots are often responsible for sharing oral histories and local legends. As generations pass and culture shifts, griots add onto the narratives they’ve inherited with contemporary details relevant to their audiences.
A group exhibition curated by Noel Bedolla and Ky Vassor at Galerie Myrtis gathers a dozen international artists continuing this tradition. Emergence: Stories in the Making presents “a mirror to contemporary society” by positing that the narratives we tell play a critical role in collective experiences, acts of solidarity, and ultimately, societal progress.
Kachelle Knowles, “Queen’s College” (2025), graphite, decorative paper, colored pencils, thread, charcoal, acrylic paint, ink, acrylic gemstones, marker on paper, 28 x 18 inches. Image courtesy of the artist, Galerie Myrtis, and Tern Gallery
For Alanis Forde, imagining paradise and its trappings is a way to excavate questions about internal conflict. She often paints figures with blue masks and bodies, the vibrant disguises becoming proxies that allow the artist to merge her likeness with a fictive version of herself. Subverting the art historical and cultural representations of Black women “as objects of pleasure and servitude,” Forde shapes an alternative narrative.
Kachelle Knowles works in a parallel practice. Through mixed-media portraits with patterned paper, thread, and acrylic gems, the Bahamian artist focuses on Black teenagers and asserts their rights to fluid gender expressions.
While portraits feature prominently in Emergence, Kim Rice’s “American Quilt” invokes the politics of the body without visualizing a figure. Her large-scale tapestry is comprised of maps distributed by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the defunct federal agency responsible for delineating which neighborhoods were too “hazardous” to receive mortgages in a racist process known as redlining. Stitched together with red thread, “American Quilt” makes explicit the ways that “whiteness is woven into our everyday lives,” Rice says.
If you’re in Baltimore, see Emergence: Stories in the Making through July 12.
Alanis Forde, “Garden Gloves” (2024), oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches
Kim Rice, “American Quilt” (2025), HOLC “redlining” maps, acrylic gel, thread, 10 x 11 feet. Photo by Vivian Marie Doering
Kim Rice, “American Quilt” (2025), HOLC “redlining” maps, acrylic gel, thread, 10 x 11 feet. Photo by Vivian Marie Doering
Kim Rice, “American Quilt” (2025), HOLC “redlining” maps, acrylic gel, thread, 10 x 11 feet. Photo by Vivian Marie Doering
Unyime Edet, “Spirit To Spirit: The Night Watchers” (2024), oil on canvas, 55 x 59 inches
Damilare Jaimu, “All Things Bloom” (2025), oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
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