Yesterday and Tomorrow: Imo Imeh Opens Exhibition in von Auersperg Gallery

LEO FENG/DEERFIELD SCROLL

Imo Imeh’s exhibition “Yesterday and Tomorrow” marks the artist’s return to Deerfield, where he previously presented the exhibition “The Girls–Black Heroines on the Edge of Darkness and Hope” in 2018. 

Currently a Professor of Art and Art History at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, Imeh featured his artworks in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh and the University Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

As a Nigerian-American visual artist and scholar of African Diaspora art, Imeh explores themes of cultural identity, spirituality, mythology and belonging through figurative representation of the Black body. 

Imeh’s art coordinator Kahli Hernandez wrote, “Imeh’s current projects explore the concepts of Black men as guardian figures, icons of spirituality and wisdom, and as metaphorical safe havens for those in search of Home.”

In Imeh’s personal statement on his website, he describes his artistic approach as seeking alternative ways of “perceiving Blackness, not in trauma and pessimism but rather in healing, revelation, wonder, and transcendence.” 

These themes are reflected in his painting “Flying Home with Laura Nelson,” featured in  “Yesterday and Tomorrow.” In the piece, Imeh showcases a fusion of African, European and American histories and philosophies. By layering the artistic mediums of charcoal, oil paint, graphite and India ink onto a canvas, Imeh depicts Laura Nelson, an African-American woman who was brutally murdered in the early 1900s. 

“In this work, I resurrect Laura Nelson, who still bears a noose around her neck, as a flying figure with three simultaneous identities,” described Imeh. The painting portrays Nelson as both a living and deceased figure, with sparrows flying across both panels that serve as “intermediates between life and Afterlife.” Beneath the suspended figures, Imeh also incorporates the musical scores of a funerary slave song titled “I’m Going Home,” representing the possibility that “[Nelson] escapes death and, as in African-American slave folklore, flies back “Home” to Africa,” explained Imeh. 

Additionally, in his “Benediction” series, Imeh draws upon Christian mythology to examine the experience of Black men and boys. The series, first started in 2019, was amplified by the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020. 

“‘Benediction’ tells the story of a group of angels that have been cast down to earth and bound to the skins of Black Boys and men,” explained Hernandez. 

Using these angelic figures, Imeh examines the suffering of Black men, portraying the angels as witnesses to the hardships faced by Black communities. “The angels’ task is to serve as witnesses to the traumas and triumphs that they experience through their ‘hosts,’” described Hernandez. 

From this series, the gallery specifically features the piece titled “A Cure for All Sorrows.” Painted in honor of Samuel Hines, a close friend of Imeh’s that passed away to cancer, the piece portrays Hines as one of the “Benediction” angels. Hernandez described the work as “personal prayers by Imeh, appeals to God for peace, healing, and wisdom.”  

Apart from depicting mythological figures, Imeh also grounds his works in historical events. A piece titled “and i’ll be there with you,” part of his “in his name” series, is a direct response to the Capitol Building Riots on January 6th, 2021. 

“Inspired by the death of Ashli Babbitt, this work features a woman who is garbed in the American flag …  but whose body is impaled on spears that represent the destructive ideologies on which she has died,” described Hernandez. “This work is a commentary on the folly of signaling your personal beliefs as absolute truth, especially amid a diversity of ideas and philosophies.” 

When reflecting on the subject in the paintings, art student Jonathan Xu ’28 thought that “his artmaking was really free and captured a great sense of motion in human bodies.” He further commented on Imeh’s use of various drawing mediums, saying, “I liked the artist’s use of charcoal … I also thought in the few cases where he chose to include color, it was interesting where he sort of layered opaque layers of color upon charcoal figures.” 

Hernandez said that in times when important questions about citizenship, nationality and belonging are rising in public discourse, “this presentation will offer a meaningful contribution to these critical conversations as they unfold within Deerfield Academy’s community of emerging leaders, scholars and artists.”