I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.

- Zora Neale Hurston

“To be a Black artist in Portland, Oregon is to occupy a unique positionality that defies categorization. One is never either/or, but always operating in the tension of both /and: insider/outsider; invisible/ hypervisible; native/trans-plant. As I reflect on the conversations between myself and the artists in this exhibition about their experiences navigating the Portland art world, I find myself coming back to this passage from Zora Neale Hurston's seminal essay, How It Feels to be Colored Me. Like Hurston, Blackness, and the exploration of Black lived experience (s) is a central theme in the practices of Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Intisar Abioto, Lisa Jarrett, Julian V. L. Gaines, and Samantha Wall. And yet, despite the time and space between them, they also grapple with a similar predicament: What does it mean to unapologetically revel in the facets of one's identity when up against the politics of a space that makes you perpetually aware of your status as an outsider?”

-Dr. Kiara Hill