April First Friday

April 5, 2024, 5-8 pm

Join us April 5th, starting at 5:00 for SOWA’s monthly First Friday event! Free and open to the public, this is a chance to mix and mingle with the art and art lovers while enjoying light refreshments on a Friday night.

Photos courtesy of Alex Arlos and ShowUp

Extra features the work of Rixy, Ja’Hari Ortega, and Wavy Wednesday. The exhibition is inspired by the descriptor within Black and Brown communities describing something or someone as excessive, out-of-the-box, or ‘doing too much’ which is a coded, negative connotation for defying the mainstream. To quote Melissa Harris-Perry, “Shamed for being fast, womanly, or too damn grown, Black girls are encouraged to stop doing so much or being extra.” Instead, watch these girl bosses reclaim the beauty in their flyness, outspokenness, too muchery, bling, boundless imagination, and refusal to dim their shine. 

The artists respond by unleashing their full creative potential. The illustrative style and community-based background of street artist Rixy works to dismantle machismo and societal conventions through her unapologetic depictions of lush figures and her clever use of gender performance histories. JaHari Ortega‘s compelling sculptural works and installation reinforce the exhibition’s themes of adornment and self-expression. Wavy Wednesday’s pop-art style denounces racism through satire and allusions to consumerism. She said to a WESA reporter, “Being a Black woman is feeling like you’re automatically placed on the outside.” What would it look like if we were no longer entangled in these enclosures, we could have a space to just BE, unapologetically? It cultivates what being at the center really feels like.