Allens Lane Art Center is pleased to present So Black You Blue, a group exhibition presented in partnership with the Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Featuring work by three local Black artists, the exhibition explores the deep, layered relationship between Blackness and the color blue. Curated by 2026 Rebeccah Milena Maia Blum (RMMB) Curatorial Fellow, Qiaira Riley, this exhibition brings together three contemporary artists who reflect on this rich visual lineage through installation, collage, ceramics, and alternative photography.

Statement:

Black people, through both individual and collective experiences, have long had a storied relationship with the color blue.Throughout time and space, the color’s shades have added texture and meaning to the culture, history, and everyday phenomenology of Black life. We sing the blues, some of our ancestors escaped into the oceans’ blue, while we all wake up underneath blue skies. Whether in the American South, West Africa, or the Caribbean, we find narratives of blue that can symbolize sorrow or hope. Black and blue: both beautiful and complicated colors can hold so much meaning, representing the regal, the sacred, or the unknown. So Black, You Blue will be a group exhibition featuring the work of three contemporary artists who meditate on this relationship between Blackness and blue. This multifaceted display of installation, collage, ceramics, and alternative photography will showcase the varied ways that Black artists are negotiating with this visual lineage. Interdisciplinary ceramicist, Angelique Scott’s work nods to the afro-diasporic practice of indigo dyeing while exploring Black American spirituality and interiors through nostalgic material culture.Working in cyanotype and collage, artist Yannick Lowery speaks of a love for blue. “Its color is synonymous with some of my favorite things: Black folks, the moon, and melancholy. As an artist, I've made several attempts to harness its hue to tell a story, to unify, and to use the color as a multifaceted container of references.” Kenyssa Evan’s installation and photography work explores the relationship between the color and surveillance technology through Evan’s use of chroma key blue. So Black,You Blue hopes to honor and complicate the various associations people have with color through the lens of artists whose work touches on blue’s various histories. Together, these artists’ varied connections to color tell an intricate narrative uplifting the beauty found in Black and blue.