New Northwest exhibit to feature visual artist’s reframing of historical narratives associated with Black Southern families

Northwest Missouri State University will host an artist’s exploration of the ways rural, Black Southern families use visual art as a means of resistance and narrative reclamation during the spring semester’s first exhibit in the Olive Deluce Art Gallery.

Titled “An Archive of Care: Reframing Our Understanding of Family, Place, and Identity,” the exhibit features the work of Robin North, an interdisciplinary visual artist and educator who grew up along the Gulf Coast in the deep south of Texas.

The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, opened January 23 and will be displayed through Friday, February 21.

“We feel very privileged to introduce the work of Robin North to our community through his gripping exhibition in the DeLuce Gallery,” Dr. Karen Britt, a Northwest associate professor of art, said. “The work in his exhibition explores the complicated history of our country’s past in original and deeply moving ways. As historical documents, photographs have an immediacy that draws us in, when I view the work in the exhibition I personally have the sense that North’s images are passing through me rather than my passing through the images. It is a penetrating and meaningful experience that we are thrilled to offer our students and the community.”

North employs Grounded Theory and Visual Anthropological research methods, placing himself in local cultures and taking a visual storytelling approach to educate and decolonize knowledge free of Western narratives and aesthetics.

His work focuses on African Diaspora and African American historical narratives with an emphasis on how photography has been historically used to diminish Black representation and perpetuate racial inferiority. Through visual storytelling, North transforms archival materials into works that challenge dominant historical frameworks and offer alternative interpretations. His artistic practice reinterprets the silenced histories of Black Southern families, creating pieces that connect past struggles to contemporary social dynamics and generate new visual dialogues that invite audiences to question historical assumptions and explore the resilience embedded in African diasporic experiences.

North earned his bachelor of fine arts in photography and digital media from the University of Houston and a master of fine arts in art with a concentration in photography and multimedia from San Diego State University. He is recognized for his innovative approach to 19th-century photographic print processes, analog and digital photo-based image-making, multimedia and emerging technologies.

The exhibition and North’s visit earlier in the week are co-sponsored by Northwest’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in conjunction with the University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Week activities. Funding support for the exhibit also comes from the Missouri Arts Council.

The Olive DeLuce Art Gallery’s spring exhibit schedule also includes a ceramics exhibit featuring Artaxis artists, March 24 through April 18, and exhibits featuring work created by Northwest students, March 3-7 and April 11 through May 2.

The gallery is open from 9 am to 1 pm, Wednesday, 1 to 7 pm, Tuesday and Thursday, and 10 am to 1 pm, Friday. For more information about the gallery, call 660.562.1326 or email fparts@nwmissouri.edu.