Earth Sanctuary seeks to celebrate the natural world and the legacy of African American women gardeners in Virginia. In this exhibition of abstract works Burrowes explores vibrant color, texture, and rhythm in recent mixed media paintings on paper referencing botanicals found in local gardens. Monotypes allude to imagined landscapes or flowers and plants gifted from community gardens. Rhythmic collage compositions juxtapose patterned geometric shapes, and earlier installations explore the concept of the garden as a place for restoration and healing. Current research on selected Black gardeners in Virginia, include Harlem Renaissance poet, gardener, librarian, and activist Anne Spencer (1882-1979), born on a Virginia farm. These works invite viewers to consider Black women’s historical relationship to the natural world and the gardens they cultivated.

Born in Chicago, Adjoa J. Burrowes is a mixed media artist practicing in the Washington D.C. area. A printmaking graduate of Howard University and the Corcoran School of Art at George Washington University, her awards include a 2024 Printmaking Fellowship at Virginia Commission for the Arts, Art Bank Grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Made in VA exhibition award from the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Burrowes exhibitions include a commissioned work in Holding Ground: Artists’ Books for the NationalMuseum of Women in the Arts, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba (NY), Mary Howard Biennial Invitational, Tephra ICA (VA), and University of Hawaii, Hilo Center Gallery (Hawaii). Burrowes work can be found in collections at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Library of Congress Rare Books and Special Collections, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and Banneker Douglass Museum of Art.

The concept for Earth Sanctuary germinated in 2021 when touring the Anne Spencer House & Garden Museum in Lynchburg, VA. I was intrigued by the historic artifacts in the former home of the Harlem Renaissance poet, and the lush gardens, the only restored African American garden in the United States. The works that evolved included two paintings, Earth, I thank you, named after a Spencer poem, and Garden Cloak, a floor installation evoking a sense of safety and rest in nature. In 2022 I began interviews of two gardeners in Northern Virginia from the African diaspora and another from North Carolina. Their stories reveal the deep connections and memories of the land of their origins and the profound sense of well-being derived from gardening. I continue to create abstract paintings and monotypes inspired by these gardens; seek contemporary and historical connections between African American women and nature; and to explore the third dimension in prints and paintings.

Artist Talk with Adjoa Burrowes

Thursday, December 18, 3  pm

Adjoa Burrowes will lead a gallery discussion about her exhibition titled, Earth Sanctuary. In her exhibition Burrowes seeks to celebrate the natural world and the legacy of African American women gardeners in Virginia through vibrant colors, texture, and rhythm.

Free to the public (a donation of $10 is suggested)