Chris Friday: Where We Never Grow Old

Chris Friday is a multidisciplinary artist best known for her larger-than-life yet intimate figurative drawings, meticulously created in chalk on black paper. For her first solo museum exhibition, she explores the notion of “incorruptible environments.” These are the imagined sanctuaries we construct in our minds—our refuge from the harsh realities of the modern world—and the worlds we aspire to bring to life. Tradition, religion, and culture form the bedrock of these environments, while nostalgia and memory act as potent vessels, preserving ideas of self, community, and identity. Friday’s diverse works, ranging from large-scale drawings to textiles and sculptures, will serve as a contemplation of the “archive” and its potential role in (re)defining Blackness in media and popular culture.

Friday’s work has been showcased in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Rest is Power curated by the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University (2023), and The Cartography Project at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. (2022). Based in Miami, Friday has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, and in 2023, she was named the South Arts Southern Prize State Fellow for the State of Florida.

This exhibition is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design, curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator, Sarasota Art Museum.

Image credit: Chris Friday, Rest as Reparations Series: Untitled, Courtney, 2022. Chalk on black archival paper, approx. 70 x 108 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Amir Aghareb.