April Bey: ATLANTICAN OPULENCSCAPES / part II
The Boone Family Art Gallery
Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA
March 4 - May 4, 2024
April Bey's interdisciplinary artwork serves as both introspection and social critique, exploring themes such as feminism, generational theory, social media, and constructs of race within supremacist systems.
Bey’s focus on the fictional society of Atlantica, a speculative AfroFuturist world, takes center stage in “Atlantican Opulencscapes.” The exhibition is the first part of a trilogy simultaneously gracing the Los Angeles art scene, with the other halves showcased at Glendale Community College Art Gallery and Vielmetter Los Angeles.
“Atlantican Opulencscapes” is more than an exhibition. Bey’s paintings and textile works, developed during a year sabbatical, offer an Afrofuturist lens through which she reflects on queerness, feminism, and internet culture. The immersive installation combines plants, video, music, photography, and oversized mixed-media paintings, prints, and textiles, creating a tableau that resonates with cultural movements dating back to the late 1960s.