Tanya Weddemire Gallery will open Making Something Out of Nothing, a Black History Month group exhibition curated by Tatianna Mack, on Sunday, Feb. 1. The exhibition features the work of Kaima Marie Akarue, Tyreek Morrison, Nia Winslow and Candace Caston, four artists whose practices intersect through collage as a means of examining lived experience, memory and visual culture.
Rooted in histories of resilience and continuity, Making Something Out of Nothing draws from the long tradition of Black communities building meaning and structure through collective memory.
For generations, griots and cultural stewards carried histories forward through oral tradition, ensuring lineage, identity and values remained intact. These systems of preservation were disrupted by colonization and systemic oppression that targeted not only land and labor, but memory, authorship and self-determination. The exhibition responds to that rupture by foregrounding collage as both a physical process and a conceptual framework for survival, reclamation and reinvention.
"This show highlights emerging Black and brown artists from the African Diaspora who transform lived experience, memory and culture into powerful works of art," Mack said. "Through this exhibition, I continue my commitment to advocacy, representation and creating space for stories that deserve to be seen, valued and collected.”
The works on view emphasize process as much as finished form, highlighting experimentation, persistence, and quiet labor as essential components of creation. Through cutting, layering and reassembling existing materials, the artists demonstrate how new narratives can emerge from fragments. Like seeds developing beneath the surface before breaking through soil, the act of making is presented as deliberate, patient and transformative.
Each participating artist engages with found imagery, archival photographs and paper ephemera to reframe personal and collective histories. By working with materials already charged with meaning, the artists map the past onto the present, creating visual languages that feel intimate, familiar and emotionally resonant. The resulting works challenge traditional ideas of originality and value, asking viewers to consider what it means to build something lasting from remnants, memory and intention.
Brooklyn-based, self-taught artist Nia Imani Winslow draws inspiration from Romare Bearden, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold and Jacob Lawrence. Working primarily with paper and vintage photography, she uses texture and composition to connect historical Black life with contemporary experience.
Kaima Marie Akarue explores identity through layered collage environments that address urbanism, capitalism and erased narratives. Her work preserves personal and collective histories while prompting reflection on the spaces people inhabit and often overlook. Akarue has exhibited nationally at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, received the 2024 Jones Artist Award and the Carol Crow Fellowship.
Candace Caston, a New Orleans–born collagist now based in Atlanta, works primarily with paper and water-based media to explore the memory of place. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, her work has been published in Oxford American magazine and exhibited at venues such as The Atlanta Contemporary, UTA Artist Space and The CICA Museum.
Atlanta-based artist Tyreek Morrison transforms scraps of paper and found materials into layered narratives that move fluidly between past and present. Influenced by fashion, music and skateboarding, his collage practice reconstructs stories of resilience and cultural continuity while bridging generational experiences.
Making Something Out of Nothing opens with a public reception on Sunday, Feb. 1, at 2:00pm, at Industry City, Building 2, Suite C257.
