This exhibition of Haitian American artists M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William—both featured in the Frist Art Museum’s 2023 group show Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage—examines the capacity of immigrant bodies to recall a homeland while also reflecting a new, hybrid existence.

Through a selection of figurative paintings, collages, and sculptures, Démosthène and William will offer insight into how they occupy spaces outside Haiti (Démosthène is based primarily in New York and Accra, Ghana; William works between Miami and Philadelphia) while still being informed by the country’s cultural and spiritual traditions. Formal connections shared by the artists include an emphasis on eyes as a way to subvert an anti-immigrant gaze and the use of paired figures—a reference Vodou’s divine twins, Marassa Jumeaux—to express the duality of their experiences growing up in both Haiti and the United States.

Organized by the Frist Art Museum

Didier William. Moult 1, 2023. Acrylic, ink, oil, wood carving on panel52 x 72 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco, © Didier William