Opening:
Thursday, September 10, 2026
6 to 9 pm
(Lillian O'Brien Davis and Jeanne Randolph will be present for the opening but unfortunately Torkwase Dyson is unavailable. She will be joining us in late October and then again in March for the closing events.)
September 11, 2026 — March 6, 2027
The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava)
Torkwase Dyson
Rectangle, Square, and Triangle galleries
Curated by Lillian O’Brien Davis
Torkwase Dyson’s The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava) explores the literal and conceptual spaces of liberation and confinement as a world-building exercise in a time of ecological crisis. Installed across all three gallery spaces, the exhibition is a culmination of an ongoing series entitled Bird and Lava which meditates on the dense and fluid variations of space to emphasize a liminal state of belonging. The artist’s hand is very present in the work, with both expressive marks and diagrammatic lines that speak to a geometric language which the artist refers to as Hypershapes to explore the ways Black and brown bodies create autonomy and liberation out of infrastructures of dispossession and climates of brutality. This navigational ethos, or what the artist calls Black Compositional Thought, is foundational to the way Dyson approaches abstraction through painting, sculpture, drawing, and animation.
Within the exhibition, Dyson draws on the space of The Clearing, a trope from Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved, a site where Black people have the freedom of to improvise, to laugh, and to be pluralistic. The Bird and Lava series embraces pluralism, speaking to it as essential for ecological repair.
In Dyson’s own words: “In this moment of environmental precarity we will need to be both liquid and mountains, bird and lava. And it is the density of Black grace that will always be the thing that keeps us in our own humanity. Thinking through the histories of Black liberation, these are the victories that fortify my being in the objects I make. It’s time for a new relationship with abstraction, an illegal abstraction developed out of the condition of new world building toward liberation and revolution.”
Torkwase Dyson, Cotton (Bird and Lava), 2024. Graphite, string, and acrylic on wood.
Photograph: Richard Gary, courtesy Pace Gallery.
Torkwase Dyson (1973, Chicago) describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Examining the history and future of black spatial liberation strategies, Dyson’s abstract works grapple with the ways in which space is perceived and negotiated, particularly by black and brown bodies. The artist has distilled a vocabulary of poetic forms to address the spaciousness of freedom and question what type of climates are born out of world building.
Dyson studied sociology, social work, and fine arts at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, 1996; received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, 1999; and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut, 2003. She has held solo exhibitions at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, 2018; The Drawing Center, New York, 2018; New Orleans Museum of Art, Louxisiana, 2020; Serpentine Galleries, London, 2021; Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany, 2021; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, 2023; and ‘T’ Space, Rhinebeck, New York, 2023, among others. Dyson was also part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale; 12th Liverpool Biennial; 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale; and the 81st Whitney Biennial. In May 2025, the artist debuted Akua, her first major installation with sound, in New York City at Brooklyn Bridge Park, commissioned by the Public Art Fund. Dyson also created the conceptual design for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Costume Institute’s Spring 2025 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art which traced the cultural and historical significance of the Black Dandy from the eighteenth century to the present day. In 2026, Dyson is participating in the 59th Carnegie International, debuted a new installation at the Venice Biennale, and will be presenting a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, opening October 17.
Dyson’s work is held in notable public collections worldwide, including The Art Institute of Chicago; Hall Art Foundation, Derneburg, Germany, and Reading, Vermont; Hammer Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Long Museum, Shanghai; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; The Museum of Modern Art; National Museum of African American History and Culture; The Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Lillian O’Brien Davis (she/her) is Associate Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. She previously held the position of Curator of Collections and Contemporary Art Engagement at The Goldfarb Gallery. She has curated independent projects with Nuit Blanche Toronto, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Susan Hobbs Gallery, and the School of Art Gallery at the University of Manitoba. Her writing has appeared in BlackFlash magazine, Canadian Art online, C Magazine, Insight Magazine, and RACAR Art History Journal. From 2021 to 2025, Lillian was one of two inaugural Visiting Curators at the University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery. In 2023, she received the David C. and Thelma G. Driskell Award for Creative Excellence. O’Brien Davis was born in Tkaronto (Toronto), and she holds a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies and a BA Hons. in the History of Art and English Literature from the University of Toronto.
Installation Team: Uroš Jelić (lead), Phu Bui, Corinne Carlson, Jonah Kamphorst, Jordan May, Grayson Richards, Joe Thomson, Manny Trinh, Morgan Zigler
