Cedric Harper: ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE is the seventh exhibition in the 1:1 Exhibition Series presented in the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts with the opening reception on Thursday, March 16, 2023 from 6-9 pm.
In ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE, Boston poet-artist Cedric Harper, curated by Carol Moses, creates an immersive environment that takes the form of a forest of vertical artworks. He shapes artworks with influences from varied cultures, borrowing from global gestural languages. Employing both text and symbolism, Harper contemplates love, loss, style, queerness and perseverance.
Drawing on his personal experience as a Black gay man, and rooted in his long exploration of found materials and world languages, Harper’s work is sensitive to what he experiences as the ruinous path of the world in material consumption and environmental devastation. In sculptural as well as two-dimensional works, he innovates in the scrambling of language: the scripts and organic patterns look ancient but are very new, timeless in their recurrence through human history, as they are derived from nature. Apart from the opening reception, Cedric Harper: ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE will be on view at the Mills Gallery between March 11 — April 15, 2023 for the public.
The reception on 3/16 and the artist conversation on 3/30 are both free, but require an RSVP on the BCA website.
The exhibition will be on view in the Mills Gallery between March 11 — April 15, 2023 free for the public. The gallery will be open Wednesday—Saturday, 1–6pm.
BCA Mills Gallery, 551 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02116
PLEASE NOTE: Masks are required.
Additional time info:
Cedric Harper: ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE will be on view at the BCA Mills Gallery from March 11 — April 15, 2023, with an opening reception on March 16 from 6–9pm.
During the opening reception, visitors will also be able to visit Project Room No. 4: Chick Byrne, the fourth of the new Mills Gallery Project Room Exhibition Series. In addition, BCA Studio Residents' studios in the BCA Artist Studios Building will be open from 5:30–8pm, including the newly renovated dance studio, Studio 414! If you get to our campus an hour early or feel like stepping outside during the reception, you’re welcome to explore the four floors next door to the Mills and visit some BCA studio residents and their studios.
Public Program: Thursday, March 30, 2023 | 6–7:30pm
CREATING FROM THE UNWANTED: Artists in Conversation About Working with Discarded Materials
Cedric Harper and five artist friends explore their artistic use of materials that have been thrown away. Hear from this group of painters, sculptors, and textile artists in talks about their paths, motivations, and processes in making artwork from discarded, unwanted materials.
Artists: Cedric Harper, Michelle Lougee, Jeffrey Nowlin, Adriana Prat, and Rebecca McGee Tuck.
2023/03/11 - 2023/04/15
Mills Gallery at the BCA
539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116