The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint

Drawing conceptual and sonic inspiration from Ambrose Akinmusire, this exhibition interrogates the elusive and often projected figure of salvation within Black subjectivity.

The exhibition operates within a space of tension, between longing and scepticism, visibility and abstraction, presence and absence.

Through layered visual forms, the works resist the completeness traditionally associated with representation, instead proposing that salvation, whether spiritual, political or personal, remains unstable and, at times, illusory. The exhibition challenges viewers to confront the burden of expectation placed on the idea of rescue, while considering how narratives of redemption are constructed, internalised, and ultimately destabilised within the lived realities of people of colour.

About the Great Record by Artist: Ambrose Akinmusire

With his 2011 debut for Blue Note, “When The Heart Emerges Glistening,” he delivered a poised program of original material, music that bristled with commitment, intelligence and simmering emotion.

His enthralling new album, “the imagined savior is far easier to paint,” comes freighted with an even more evocative title, and represents a leap in creative ambition. The album features settings for string quartet, probing character studies inspired by stories of his own invention and art songs, like “Our Basement” by folk/jazz vocalist Becca Stevens, who sings on the album’s only track not written by Akinmusire.