1878 & Brown Foundation Galleries
June 5 – August 22, 2021
ArtWalk Reception - Saturday, June 5, 2021
6 – 9 PM
This exhibition is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Texas Commission on the Arts.
Irene Antonia Diane Reece
Home-goings
Home-goings is an exhibition by Houston based contemporary artist and visual activist Irene Antonia Diane Reece featuring photography and installations that explore African American spirituality, Black southern churches, and Black Liberation Theology. The term home-goings describes the traditional funerary practice in the African American Christian church of celebrating the life of those who have passed and sending them on to the afterlife and their motherland. For Reece this practice represents the complexities of protecting Black lives and has become central to her work and life. Through experimentations with imagery from family archives, church objects, and multilayered metaphors and messages, Reece celebrates her family, identity, spirituality, and emphasizes that Black lives are sacred.
Irene Antonia Diane Reece identifies as a contemporary artist and visual activist. Born and raised in Houston, TX, she earned her BFA in Photography and Digital Media and MFA in Photography and Image-making. Reece’s work has been exhibited internationally, including recent exhibitions at the 5th Biennale Internationale de Casablanca, in Casablanca, Morocco; the virtual group exhibition MULTI at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, TX; and Unraveled. Restructured. Revealed: Where Contemporary Art and Diverse Perspectives Intersect curated by Tyanna Buie, Trout Museum of Art, Appleton, WI. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, ARTnews, and Lenscratch, along with editorial contributions for ProPublica. Reece is a 2021 recipient of the Black Rock Senegal Residency in Dakar, Senegal. Reece’s photographic works, appropriated films, usage of text, and found objects create an insight into her world. The topics surrounding her work are racial identity, African diaspora, social injustice, family histories, re-memory, mental and community health. Reece’s objectives are to continue to take up space, contribute to making work for the communities she represents, and create forms of racial equity in the arts.
