"How do you photograph the unphotographable?" asked artist Farah Al Qasimi, her head tilted at a curious angle. The artist also known as Frequently Asked Question then offered her answer: "A little bit of intervention."

Al Qasimi was in conversation with museum exhibitions associate curator Brittany Richmond. It was deFINE Art 2026 live on the SCAD MOA theater stage, and it was awesome.

The occasion was the opening of Psychic Repair, Al Qasimi's double whammy activation of the museum's street-facing marquee vitrines and trippy inner gallery. "You're an image maker and you have a very specific relationship to images," Richmond began, prompting Al Qasimi to explain the dynamic between Instagram posts and museum-ready fine art.

"For photographers there's often this hierarchy where something made with your camera is an art object, and things made with your phone somehow count less," Al Qasimi replied. "I think of it all as the same enterprise, the same project of world-making."

What a world she's made: the Abu Dhabi-born, Brooklyn-based artist spoke of her "collaged sense of identity" (Emirati father, Lebanese mother, fluent in Photoshop and the Ivy League scene) that has left her "feeling like an outsider everywhere. Luckily that's a very good quality for a photographer to have, because you can find something a little bit fantastic or otherworldly in the everyday."

Psychic Repair (per the exhibition's promo collateral) presents "highly saturated images that explore rituals of self-presentation and their ties to identity, memory, and belief formation." Photographs like "Absolute Radiance" vibrate at freakish peaks of the chromatic spectrum, seductive and strange.

Farah Al Qasimi, Psychic Repair, exterior museum view, 2026.

Al Qasimi then name-checked doyenne of dancing dolphins Lisa Frank, and mentioned "something a little bit more sinister underneath the surface of all that celebratory color." "We are so accustomed to images trying to sell us something," Richmond observed.

"I like the idea that these [photographs of mine] aren't trying to sell you on anything except maybe a deeper understanding of the language of consumerism and the seduction of the image," Al Qasimi replied, shuffling her boots.

At one point, the artist referred to Psychic Repair's video installations as "moments to pause." When the curator encouraged the audience to go experience the exhibition, those moments had arrived.

In the museum, TV screens flickered. One was labeled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Room," its title a riff on Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Headphones beckoned.

There was Al Qasimi on screen, dressed in a suit like Robert Palmer in his iconically vapid 1986 MTV smash "Addicted to Love." Then she appeared as a dorky Dubai teen, smitten with Iron Maiden and high on skin whitening cream, crooning through her karaoke machine: "Hey dad / I bought a guitar / I'm in a band / please don't be mad."

Post-sinister, parody-ready pop pantomime became a fun way to beat time. FAQ's little bit of intervention had gone the distance.

Farah Al Qasimi, "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Room," video still from digital video, 2016.

Courtesy of the artist and Francois Ghebaly, Los Angeles / New York.

"I'm fascinated by the light in between the trees," artist Michi Meko said from the stage of the SCAD Museum of Art. "That light is where I find inspiration."

To enter Meko's new SCAD MOA exhibition, So Black and So Blue, gallery-goers walk into a light that at first seems like darkness, through freighted wrought iron gates, into the cool interior of the gallery. There, his paintings project astonishing, pelagic power.

"For me, the entryway creates space for the viewers," Meko explained during his packed-house artist talk with chief curator Dr. Daniel S. Palmer.  "I was thinking about the Door of No Return in Ghana, where they took the ancestors. This museum space creates a point of return, a moment of calm. It's not the start of an arduous journey. I'm instantly trying to put you at peace."

Black thought: entering Meko's show. Photo: Apollo Hamwey.

Alabama-born, Atlanta-based Meko is a former/forever graffiti writer known for activating spray paint and found objects to create layered compositions. For So Black and So Blue, the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant drew inspiration from Louis Armstrong's jazz classic “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue,” author Imani Perry’s vivid 2025 book Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, and the late great Wu-Tang rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard ("there's no father to his style").

"I try to push my paint. If there is a mark that needs to be made, I just make the mark," Meko said.

To be sure, the paintings are big. Their grandeur suits their gilded frames. What's extraordinary is the amount of light contained within the darkness of the gallery, and the darker tones of the paint itself.

"These colors relate to Black culture and they always existed within Black culture and we did not know or self-consciously we did," Meko said. "I grew up in a bedroom that was this baby blue. Think about your Southern porch, the haint blue painted on top comes out of African culture. So, I set restrictions upon myself and within those restrictions, that confinement, it forces you to understand your palette."

The energy from the artist talk came from Meko and Palmer's exchange of ideas, and it came from the painting and art history and graphic design students who filled the auditorium and who challenged Meko with questions about selling out and the symbolism of fishing. The artist basked: "I can still take that rebel punk rock side of myself and put it in a museum. I'm bombing the wall. This is my way to smudge Savannah."

Michi came across like a loosey goosey dude in a monster truck tee, flipped-brim cap and Vans with no socks. But make no mistake: this is a vital artist who has worked hard to become, as Palmer put it, "a leading voice in contemporary painting."

As he walked off the SCAD MOA stage, Meko slowed and emphatically turned toward the students. He addressed them directly: "Please take advantage of your professors. Please take advantage of your facilities. Please miss the biggest party of the year to go to your studio. The way that you work now will determine the way that you work as a professional. Please work on your discipline now."

Michi Meko, So Black and So Blue, on view through Jan. 4, 2026.

Drop the outdated dongle and expired earbuds and decouple all devices — it's time to booty-scoot to SCAD MOA for the final week of Corrina Goutos's exhibition Bivalves no Booty in the Alumni Gallery.
 
Future-forger Goutos (b. 1991, New York; B.F.A. jewelry, 2013) fuses fragments of mass-produced objects with raw natural materials to create unusual, conceptual, and often wearable artworks that resemble fossils from the future. In other words, old tech gets smashed, bashed, and put back together as uncanny, ugly-beautiful, even humorous artworks that upend notions of "raw" and "processed."
 
"How can I be a master of a material when that material is already a collage of so many stories and timelines?" Goutos asked, rhetorically and earnestly, during a gallery talk back in March with curator Brittany Richmond. "I created the concept of 'anthrosmithing.' Instead of being a goldsmith or blacksmith, I am a smith of the raw material of today, which is not raw, but an already-processed object."
 
Through "anthrosmithing," Goutos releases outdated tech from obsolescence, giving it new life that highlights how wearables shape identity. Bivalves no Booty features two series, Vestigial Trait Bait and the most recent BlossomVerse, which explore the tension between individuality and interconnectedness in our consumer-driven society.
 
In Vestigial Trait Bait, ancient shells merge with industrial hardware to create relics that blend the history of adornment with the concept of evolutionary appendages, reflecting on how technology has become an extension of the self. "I was inspired by the etymology, the word origins of 'shell' and 'skill' — they share the exact same paths," Goutos said.
 
In The BlossomVerse, the artist reconfigures porcelain shards and electronic waste into distorted artifacts that challenge capitalist ideals of perfection and subvert the corporate design trend of biomimicry. "It developed out of my trying to be more of a listener to the material and less [about] imposing my aesthetic onto neutral material," the artist explained, standing in front of a wall adorned with an original digital collage. "I tried to create a methodology for inviting more entropy into my process. I actually smashed a lot of porcelain figures."
 
Through these hybrid works, Goutos subverts sentimental attachments to technology and the choices consumers make via corporate coercion to discard or preserve, revealing how objects carry and transmit meaning over time like placeholders. A certain brand has certain connotations for an individual. "Nokia will be triggering, like, oh, the Nineties, my first phone!"
 
Thus, Goutos creates new totems of self-expression that evoke nostalgia and belonging. Technological remnants are fused with geological remains that embrace the uncanny beauty of growth, decay, and metamorphosis.
 
"In Bivalves no Booty my receptive touch dismantles anthropocentric notions of fixed thingdom; story-telling the two-way exchange of imprints, while jump-starting an industrial rewilding process," the artist explained.
 
The exhibition-opening gallery talk in the spring featured detailed questions from SCAD jewelry students, all of whom have their own relationship to technology — and to the totemic tchotchkes that this alum has transformed into art. "I create that value by giving it reverence," Goutos said.
 
"I really appreciate how much thought you put into all these pieces," curator Richmond told the artist. "That's why when you look at these objects, they're so powerful."

See Bivalves No Booty at the SCAD Museum of Art!

Last year, while organizing Raul De Lara's solo exhibition at SCAD MOA, curator Haley Clouser received an email. It was from the artist, and he had some news: Born in Mexico and raised in Dallas, Texas, De Lara had the opportunity to return to San Miguel de Allende for the first time in 20 years.

"When I got the chance to go, I told you, ‘We're going to have to put a pause on the final body of work because I want to go experience something.' I knew it was going to change my practice," Raul recounted during his conversation with Clouser during deFINE Art 2025.

The results are now on display in Raices/Roots, visible in the museum's public-facing jewel boxes on Turner Street. Installation names include splashy hues "Guanajuato Purple," "San Miguel Orange," and "Mexico City Green." "All inspired by the colors I saw back home," De Lara said.

Inside the vivid boxes are giant leaves of monstera deliciosa, hobby horses with cactus saddles, and what appears to be a pleather-upholstered chair. These are De Lara's artworks, what Clauser described as "uncanny, playful wooden sculptures imbued with personal and culturally significant stories to celebrate and foster a deeper understanding of the immigrant experience."

"The monstera leaf shapes are direct replicas of two leaves I saw while walking around my uncle's neighborhood in Mexico City," De Lara explained of the hanging sculpture "Como Las De Mi Tierra / Like The Ones Back Home." Regarding native notions, De Lara explained that he left Mexico at age 12 for in the United States, where as a DACA recipient, he is not wholly free to leave. "However, I was granted emergency advance parole by USCIS to visit Mexico and see my grandmother one last time before her imminent passing."

Those deeper roots of Roots were unpacked by Clauser and De Lara during deFINE. As the smart artist and insightful curator spoke, De Lara wondered: "What part gets to be revealed through the artist, and what part gets revealed through the object? How do I share a personality, how do I share a spark of life?"

Humor plays a role. De Lara's woodwork brings materiality into question. "Over the years, I discovered the difference between a chair and a sculpture of a chair, which presents an interesting distinction for me to play with." 

Outside on Turner Street, pedestrian passed by on the sidewalk, glanced at the jewel boxes and did doubletakes. Were the jewel boxes now nodes for a home décor showroom? The title "Soft Chair" lands like a punchline.

"That playfulness is activated after the production of the artwork," Clouser said.

"My ethos with the work is that I like it to be modular, to be able to exist in place that maybe I can't travel to, or places where someone else will be taking care of the sculpture," De Lara said.

With Raices/Roots, that place is SCAD.

Installation view of Raul De Lara: Raíces/Roots at SCAD Museum of Art.
 

The SCAD Museum of Art is proud to announce the fall 2024 season of exhibitions, uniting works by forward-thinking creators who represent varied identities, viewpoints, and artistic movements. Reflecting upon the legacies of history while engaging directly with contemporary culture, the nine new exhibitions attune viewers to the power of the human experience, and the dynamic expressions of artists seeking connection to the world around them.
 
"The SCAD Museum of Art serves as a bold and brilliant beacon for lovers of visual ideation across the globe, said SCAD President Paula Wallace. “Our fall shows feature a charismatic lineup of contemporary artists from India, Italy, Kuwait, and beyond — and we welcome back SCAD alum Anya Molyviatis for her debut solo museum exhibition in the SCAD MOA Alumni Gallery. If you're ready to see the world with new eyes, join me at the SCAD Museum of Art this fall. The space draws you in, irresistibly. No passport required!"
 
SCAD MOA welcomes George Clinton to Savannah for the first museum exhibition of his wildly unconventional paintings and drawings that defy expectations with an imaginative Afrofuturist aesthetic centering improvisation and joy. Clinton will present this year's Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Lecture, placing his work in context with the lineages of African American storytelling. The museum is further honored to partner with Dia Art Foundation on a focused exploration of the innovative practice of Minimalist artist Dan Flavin (1933–96), whose pivotal works established a defining formal language of light and space.
 
In new and recent works, Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola critiques the commercialization of culture while uplifting the nuanced roles of everyday objects within Black life and individuality. Blending myth and purported fact in an evocative, grounding installation, multidisciplinary sculptor and filmmaker Monira Al Qadiri explores the complexities of the Persian Gulf's past and future. In her debut solo museum exhibition, SCAD alum Anya Molyviatis (B.F.A., fibers, 2021) merges technology and craft in intricate weavings that augment perception. Artist collaborators Thukral and Tagra contemplate the intersection of the digital and natural worlds in hyperrealistic paintings marked by analog pixels and glitches. Examining the connection between image-making and identity, Pop-Deco illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli transforms her graphic designs into bold portraits for a site-specific installation in the museum's public-facing Jewel Box vitrines. Beloved fashion designer Isabel Toledo is also celebrated with a posthumous exhibition of her work curated with her husband, artist, and fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo.
 
SCAD MOA chief curator Daniel S. Palmer said: "This new season of exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art will be unparalleled in the institution's recent history. With creators from across the globe working compellingly in nearly every medium, audiences are sure to be astonished by the art on view. Ranging from a historically significant display of American Minimalist Dan Flavin's most important series to the first solo museum exhibition of P-Funk cultural icon George Clinton's paintings and dynamic installations from Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Monira Al Qadiri, Anya Molyviatis, Thukral and Tagra, Isabel Toledo, and Olimpia Zagnoli, these exhibitions are certain to amaze and inspire."
 
The museum's fall exhibitions season reflects the prestige and relevance of SCAD's top-ranked degree programs, from painting, photography, and sculpture to fashion, fibers, industrial design, illustration, and film and television. Students, alumni, and visitors can engage with the artists and curators at complementary programming, including an opening celebration, artist talks and conversations throughout the week, and an electrifying performance by George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic.

George Clinton, Alice in My Fantasies, c. 1999, acrylic and markers on canvas, 30 x 24 in. Private collection. 

Join the opening celebration Thursday, Sept. 26, 6 p.m., at SCAD MOA, 601 Turner Blvd. in Savannah.
 
For more information, visit scadmoa.org.

Banner image: Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Party in the USA (HELL YEAH!!!), 2023, durags on aluminum and wood frame, 72 x 144 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Photography by Nik Massey.

SCAD is thrilled to present the exhibition Isabel Toledo: A Love Letter at the SCAD Museum of Art. Curated by SCAD FASH creative director Rafael Gomes in close collaboration with Isabel's husband, noted fashion illustrator and artist Ruben Toledo, A Love Letter is the first posthumous exhibition of the designer's work to be presented in the United States.

The immortal Isabel Toledo, photographed by Randall Bachner.

"One word evokes the legacy of Isabel Toledo: unforgettable," said SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace. "This beloved designer eschewed celebrity, though all the world could not look away. She and her creative partner and husband, Ruben, embraced joy at every turn and generously donated their time — and endless bolts of fabric — to SCAD students over the years. SCAD proudly invites students and guests to experience Isabel's inestimable genius and joie de vivre at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah. XOXO, Isabel!"

Presented in SCAD MOA's André Leon Talley Gallery, A Love Letter honors the legacy and resonance of Isabel's ingenious artistry. The exhibition highlights the Cuban American designer's expertise in techniques, textiles, construction, and color and celebrates her enduring status as a legendary figure in fashion. Revered among her peers as a "designer's designer," Isabel was focused on craft and guided by emotions, with a unique process that translated into exquisite creations, masterfully executed with precision. A Love Letter presents nearly 40 signature Isabel Toledo garments — including never-before-seen looks from the Toledo archives — with complementing illustrations by Ruben. The exhibition also features the SCAD-produced film Echoes and Vibrations, which documents their eternal love story.

Inside the gallery, a Love Letter inspires. 

"I am excited to see the ongoing creative dialogue between Isabel's work and the next generation of designers and artists with this beautiful exhibition at the SCAD Museum of Art," said Ruben Toledo. "It is my honor to share never-before-seen Isabel Toledo designs unearthed by SCAD FASH creative director Rafael Gomes from our extensive archives, and it is my hope to see her work spark new ideas in the open minds and able hands of SCAD students. Both Isabel and I believed that art and design are living languages that grow when shared. A new visual vocabulary is born by deeply exploring art and design, which SCAD MOA does so brilliantly and thoroughly."
 
Born in Cuba in 1960, Isabel emigrated to New York as a young girl with her family. She met Ruben Toledo in high school, originating a lifelong partnership in which they served as each other's muse, collaborator, and confidant. Inherently curious and creative, Isabel began making clothes for herself as a teenager, soon appearing on international "Best Dressed" lists. She honed her approach during her time working under legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, where she had intimate access to garments by iconic couturiers such as Cristóbal Balenciaga, Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet, and Christian Dior. After presenting her first namesake collection in 1985 to critical acclaim, Isabel maintained a fully independent label dedicated to her craft while deflecting the limelight. This pure devotion to her work and honest artistic mindset led her to become one of the most respected fashion designers in the industry.
 
"Isabel Toledo's timeless creations are remarkable in their impeccable technique," said Rafael Gomes, SCAD FASH creative director. "She was one of the most beloved and iconic figures in American fashion. SCAD is honored to celebrate her incredible body of work and to intimately collaborate with Ruben to pay homage to her enduring legacy and to Isabel and Ruben's eternal love story."

Ruben Toldeo (left) with SCAD FASH Creative Director Rafael Gomes.

Isabel Toledo: A Love Letter is on view Aug. 14–Dec. 26, 2024. For more information, visit scadmoa.org.

SCAD is proud to announce the appointment of Andreia Wardlaw as director of the Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies at the SCAD Museum of Art. Wardlaw is an experienced leader and community builder who is passionate about education and the arts.
 
"The varied traditions in African American art have long served as a way to illuminate the voices of the community and celebrate Black culture," says Wardlaw. "I am honored to have the opportunity to elevate the esteemed presence of SCAD MOA’s Evans Center in hopes of building on its legacy of being a preeminent space for engagement with Black art."
 
As director of the Evans Center, Wardlaw will work closely with renowned artists, designers, scholars, and the SCAD community to develop programming that enhances public knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of Black art, culture, and literature. Prior to joining SCAD, she worked at the Center for Women’s History at the New York Historical Society and taught in higher education. Wardlaw received her M.A. in African American studies from Columbia University.
 
"We are thrilled to have Andreia Wardlaw as the new director of the SCAD Museum of Art’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies," says SCAD MOA chief curator Daniel S. Palmer. "The depth of her experience working in various aspects of African American studies and culture will be a tremendous resource to SCAD students and the many visitors who come to see the remarkable exhibitions on view at the museum. Since its founding, the Evans Center has been a beacon that highlights transformative stories of contemporary Black culture, and we look forward to this continuing under Wardlaw’s directorship."
 
SCAD established the Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies within the prestigious SCAD Museum of Art in 2011. The Evans gifted the museum more than 60 important works by renowned artists including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert S. Duncanson, Richard Hunt, and Jacob Lawrence. The collection forms the foundation of a multidisciplinary center for the study, understanding, and appreciation of African American art and culture. A permanent gallery space in the museum is also dedicated to exhibiting the work of contemporary African American artists.
 
SCAD MOA’s Evans Center has continually exhibited and celebrated Black artists, including internationally heralded exhibitions focused on the legacies of Jacob Lawrence and Frederick Douglass, as well as contemporary exhibitions by Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kenturah Davis, Chase Hall, Nina Chanel Abney, Awol Erizku, and others.
 
Under Wardlaw’s direction, the Evans Center is presenting a summer film series titled Black Culture Rewind. The series continues Friday, July 19, at 6 p.m. with a screening of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, a 2004 selection for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Dash’s seminal film shines a cinematic light on the rich Gullah Geechee history of St. Helena Island, S.C. Prior to the screening, a conversation with Gullah Geechee Sweetgrass Basket expert Amadu Massally will explore the diasporic connections between the Savannah Sea Islands and West Africa. See the event listing here.

Welcome to SCAD, Andreia Wardlaw!

"We disagree on a lot of things, and I think that's good," said Danial Aitouganov, nodding towards his zomer co-founder Imruh Asha, seated beside him on the stage of the SCAD MOA theater. "We make a point to always speak to each other with respect," Asha added, grinning. "That's because you know I'm sensitive," Aitouganov replied.
 
Funny, friendly, focused, and foregrounding their inextricable personal and professional connection, the conversation between Aitouganov (gold tooth, green slippers) and Asha (red vest, smoky glasses) at SCADstyle 2024 drew a full house of students from degree programs including fashion, fibers, and luxury and brand management.
 
Hosted by Family Style founder and Editor-in-Chief Joshua Glass, the talk—titled "Party People: Feeding the Fantasy"—covered topics ranging from deadstock fabric to TikTok trends and the value of going to museums with friends. Glass began by drawing out details from the friendship between Aitouganov and Asha, which began in Amsterdam, where Danial attended art school and Imruh worked as a stylist, before they relocated to Paris and founded their brand.
 

Zomer wowed with at Paris Fashion Week in September 2023, when Aitouganov and Asha sent their mini-me doppelgangers cavorting down the runway in their debut collection. (Doubling down, they also dressed childhood lookalikes of Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington as part of an entire campaign.) Glass expressed admiration that explosive interest has fortified the founders' principles.

"We are always looking for a balance between conceptual and commercial," Aitouganov said. "When we think of our customer we wonder, what would she wear? You need to say something with your clothes." Added Asha: "It's an ongoing conversation."
 
As an experiential lifestyle brand, zomer (Dutch for "summer") delivers garments that radiate positivity, humor and joy. Detachable flaps feature. They are not afraid of polka dots.
 
"When you put out your great first collection, then everyone's like, What's next?" Glass said, while pointing out that zomer is already designing for Spring/Summer 2025.
 
Aitouganov and Asha mentioned a potential future foray into menswear, and the importance of celebrating success amidst the rush, noting two early high water marks: having zomer carried at Bergdorf Goodman, and Bjork wearing their one-off wood sculpture dress onstage.
 
Glass nudged them to offer tips to SCAD students preparing senior thesis collections.

Stylish SCADstyle souls (l-r): Glass, Aitouganov and Asha. 

"This is the time for you to dive into your own desires and really have fun with it," said Aitouganov. "Your graduation year is like the last year when you can really be yourself, because once you go into the industry, you will work for a creative director and you will work with someone else's vision. It's always super important to have a personal subject. You need to be happy with your collection."
 
"Having peers around you that you can talk about what matters to you is really important," Asha said. "Meeting people with the same values is important, and art school makes it easier to create that network."
 
"We took the SCAD tour yesterday and I wish I was here, guys, this school is amazing," Aitouganov said. "We were talking in the green room that maybe we should take a course here at SCAD," added Asha with an awed nod.
 
The students cheered this suggestion wildly, the theater as vibrant as a zomer collection.

Last week the artist Tyler Mitchell, wearing a supremely stylish lavender sweater, sat on the SCAD MOA theater stage to discuss his new exhibition Domestic Imaginaries with chief curator Daniel Palmer. "This is such a big moment!" Palmer enthused, introducing "Tyler's most ambitious show to date and his first solo museum show in his home state." Mitchell basked in the ovation from the student audience.

"Whenever I'm invited to show my photographic work in a museum, I'm always thinking how to engage with the physicality, democratize the medium, and fuse the installation and sculpture," Mitchell said. The Atlanta native ("I grew up in the same house until age 18"), was prepared to plumb work that, in his words, "considers contemporary Black presence."

Domestic Imaginaries tackles a challenge of space. The Pamela Elaine Poetter Gallery of the SCAD Museum of Art—almost 300 feet long, with one wall comprised entirely of windows and the other of 1850s Savannah Gray brick—has confounded more experienced artists. Mitchell's solution: subdivide the gallery using zig-zagging clotheslines hung with photographs printed on fabric.

"I'm thinking about the luxury of outdoor space and what that means in today's world, especially for young Black people," Mitchell said. "All that gets married into this work, which I hope is understood and appreciated as much formally and visually as it is intellectually."

"House Is Not a Home" achieves all three aims. A satiny shroud covers a boxy walnut frame. The dye-sublimation print of a photograph of a young Black man on the fabric suggests that what is revealed is also obscured. A sort of now you see him, now you don't impression is indelible.

The exhibition also features pieces of furniture—a bureau, a bookshelf, a couch—that the artist calls "altar sculptures." They emphasize Mitchell's idea of the home as the original gallery, "where we first encounter photographs of ourselves, as people, as families, as humans wanting to form a sense of identity." (This is strikingly manifest in "The Grand Sofa," where family photos are literally printed on the sofa's mustard green fabric.)

By "bringing my photographic practice into a physical storytelling realm," Mitchell invites scrutiny of the work. One altar sculpture has drawers containing photographs; another is laden with books including Josef Albers' Interaction of Color (1963) and Robin Coste Lewis' To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness (2022). "Placing these books in proximity to each other can create almost a full sentence," Mitchell said.

Prompted by Palmer, the artists ‘fessed up to being an "obsessive collector of art books." His decision to include some of them in his show indicated a deep esteem for research as form of artistic practice. He gave a shout-out to Grace Wales Bonner.

At the end of Palmer and Mitchell's conversation, students posed questions: some technical, some philosophical. Mitchell emphasized intuition as a solution. He thanked everyone and said:

"It's exciting as a photographer to make a show that expands on what a photography show can do."

Domestic Imaginaries is on view at the SCAD Museum of Art through December 31, 2023.

"When we look at a portrait of an artist, we think about the person who's depicted in the work, their art, their stories," said assistant curator Haley Clouser from the stage of the SCAD MOA theater. "I'm happy to sit here today and flip the script."

To the stage Clouser welcomed artists Rebecca Ness, Keith Mayerson, and Michael James O'Brien, each of whom has a work in the new SCAD MOA exhibition Likewise: Artists Portraying Artists. "So, what about the artist behind the painting, behind the photograph?" Clouser prompted.

Serious script-flipping ensued; but first, a warm-up: Mayerson, radiating positivity, told the audience, "You rock!" (A laughing Ness: "You're so impasto!") O'Brien crossed his legs and told a peculiar anecdote about Richard Avedon and a dog. Clouser entreated them to speak of their work, revealing how-what-why and then some.

Mayerson's rendering of Marcel Proust—twinkling visage, prominent chin, fab mustache—depicts the French writer marveling over a painting by Vermeer. "I think the secret of portraiture is revealing the inner personality of the person you're portraying," Mayerson said, biting into an imaginary madeleine. He advised students to go deep, get into it, do research—"yes, learn from your professors and complete your assignments"—but do what you want to do. Mayerson said he'd listened to the entirety of Proust's epic A Remembrance of Things Past ("on 26 CDs!") while painting.

Brooklyn-based Ness was there to discuss "Hangama," her rich, dynamic painting of her friend, Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri, who, as Ness explained, "very specifically doesn't make paintings with paint, she makes paintings with fabric." Ness's portrait, taken from her Studio Visitor series, depicts an absorbed, in-action Hanagama pushing patchwork cloth through a sewing machine. "What was more important than getting the likeness right was making the portrait of her work the most authentic to her."

"If the person's very well known, that's not always helpful," said SCAD Atlanta chair of photography O'Brien, discussing the perils of celebrity portraiture and the day he shot Andy Warhol. "I wanted Andy to look like the prince regent in an imaginary Velazquez painting, and Edmond Gaultney is the sentry." O'Brien pointed out how his choice of film ("Tri-X 400 graded at 320") combined with limitations-turned-strengths ("I don't have depth of field") created a regal and resonant image of Warhol. "You have to ask yourself why you're being drawn to it."

Students of all ages sopped up the wit and wisdom. The discussion lasted a half-hour, tops, Clouser corralling the crew. Afterwards someone yelled "I loved that!" The only possible response? Likewise.

(l-r) Michael James O'Brien, Keith Mayerson, Rebecca Ness, SCAD MOA's Haley Clouser.