Abstract Assemblages and Collages
Khalilah Birdsong, Kristen Hayes-Campbell, Abreesha Jones
Rodríguez Calero, Uruba Slaughter, Jamele Wright Sr
July 16, 2025 to August 23, 2025
Press Release
ABSTRACT ASSEMBLAGES AND COLLAGES
From July 16 to August 23, 2025, the Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba is pleased to present the exhibition ABSTRACT ASSEMBLAGES AND COLLAGES, curated by Lamerol Gatewood. The exhibit includes 40 paintings, collages and assemblages by 6 artists: Khalilah Birdsong, Kristen Hayes-Campbell, Abreesha Jones, Rodríguez Calero, Uruba Slaughter and Jamele Wright, Sr. On August 2, from 3 - 6 pm there will be a reception for the artists and a musical performance by Amina Claudine Meyers.
Born in Ohio and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Khalilah Birdsong initially worked in the film industry before dedicating much of her time to large-scale, dynamic abstract paintings. Birdsong’s spontaneous layering and stripping of paint creates distressed textures while revealing hidden, vivid colors. Her 2024 show, A Litany for Survival, titled after a poem by Audre Lorde, considered how humanity can rewrite its current reality.
For the past 15 years, Washingtonian Kristen Hayes-Campbell’s artwork has been centered on trees as spiritual vessels of ancestral wisdom. Over time, her Spirit Tree series has evolved to include organic materials like plywood, handmade paper and most recently, raw canvas. The array of mediums in her work—acrylic, oil, watercolor, graphite—relay her personal interpretation of African spiritual traditions.
Nuyorican artist Rodríguez Calero’s acrollages—her signature technique mixing acrylic painting and collage—explore themes of race, identity, sexuality, politics and social customs. Calero’s provocative collages blending Catholic iconography and imagery from pop culture project universal messages of self-reflection, struggle and liberation. Her work examines cultural struggles by juxtaposing consumer media, such as magazine ads, beside reimagined saints as seen in the Urban Martyrs and Latter-Day Santos series.
Named one of the 100 Artists Who are Changing the Conversation by Saatchi Gallery in 2021, Abreesha Jones finds healing and personal expression in her art. Jones’ abstract paintings are a testament to her experience balancing motherhood and the challenges of mental illness. Her vaporous brushstrokes are defined by opposing energies, a yin and yang that complete and complement one another.
Uruba Slaughter is an internationally recognized, abstract artist born in New York City. In 2021, Essence Magazine named her one of 7 Black Women Contemporary Painters to Watch. Her pioneering sponging technique and bold palette produce unique, richly textured patterns that reflect resilience and a determination to transform suffering into beauty.
Born and raised in Ohio, Jamele Wright, Sr. creates textile assemblages concerned with the Black American vernacular experience. Influenced by the history of the Great Migration (1910s-1970s)and the way Hip Hop melds cultures through sampling, Wright collects found materials, like Georgia red clay and Dutch wax cloth to examine family, tradition and the material relationship between Africa and the American South.
Through their large scale mixed media assemblages, collages and paintings, these artists instinctively and impulsively investigate the self in relation to the socio-political and sociocultural climate. Each work is imbued with an innate spirituality marked by the desire to honor the past and reconnect broken paths.
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 2, 2025 3-6 pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm
Location: 219 East Second Street, New York, NY, 10009
Kenkeleba programs are funded in part by the Ruth Foundation and the support of many generous friends.
Reception / Events : Rodriguez Calero
Video : Lamerol Gatewood
