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Talley Dunn Gallery is delighted to announce the opening of Higher Ground, a solo exhibition, by internationally renowned artist Sedrick Huckaby. This groundbreaking exhibition is one the most ambitious projects in the gallery鈥檚 twenty-five-year history, as Huckaby 鈥榮 artwork transforms three different exhibition spaces at the gallery with painting, sculpture, drawings, and video.

Over five years in the making, Higher Ground is a true tour de force by Huckaby, encompassing multiple installations that embrace the artist鈥檚 decades鈥� long connection to community, humanity, struggle, and spirituality.

鈥淚 use art as social engagement. I use it for building up communities, I use it as a way to bring about positive change and to uplift . . .鈥�

From his grandmother鈥檚 kitchen table to the painted portraits of Ms. Opal Lee to the video installation commemorating the 1921 lynching of Mr. Fred Rouse in Fort Worth, Texas to over one hundred painted portraits of the community members of Nacimiento, Mexico and more, Huckaby鈥檚 Higher Ground spans generations of personal experience, history, connection, and importance.

Having received the Fulbright Fellowship in 2022, Huckaby traveled to Nacimiento, Mexico in 2023 with the intention of creating one hundred portraits of people in the community in the span of four months. With his travel easel in hand and an interpreter at his side, the artist went from house to house in this small Mexican town, sitting down with each person to hear their story and create their portrait from life. He soon realized that he was not just creating portraits of people, but rather, a portrait of a community.

鈥淭o acknowledge their presence, their work . . . just to sit down and do a portrait and listen to somebody. For me, it becomes an act of celebrating that person.鈥�

Huckaby鈥檚 one hundred portraits in this exhibition of the people of Nacimiento, Mexico depict a community deeply connected to their history, preserving their roots, customs, and connections to their Black lineage as well as celebrating the holiday of Juneteenth. In the mid-1800s this community鈥檚 ancestors, free Black Seminoles known as Mascogos fled through the southern Underground Railroad to Mexico where slavery had been strictly outlawed and in search of freedom. They founded the town originally known as El Nacimiento de los Negros and in an agreement with the Mexican government they agreed to protect the U.S. Mexican border from the invasion of American slave catchers and Texas Rangers who were crossing the border into Mexico in order to capture formerly enslaved people. In return, Mexico agreed to give the Mascogos citizenship and their own land.

Huckaby traveled to this remote town in Mexico through his Fulbright Fellowship to experience the essence of the community members who, despite immense time, distance, and difference, cherish the same day of freedom that others celebrate in the United States. Through this heroic series of one hundred paintings on view in Higher Ground, Huckaby seeks to tell a tale of a community, of shared legacy, and of continental history.

鈥淲hen creating portrait from life with a sitter, I am seeing their heart, seeing who they are, knowing their aspirations . . . I bring the studio art practice directly into social engagement.鈥�