This February marks the fourth annual Black Artists Exhibition at The Gallery at Tacoma Community College. The show, which opened on Feb. 11, assembles a stunning array of Black artists, of various disciplines, from around the South Sound. Featuring 20 artists, the show is vibrant and eclectic, at times joyous, contemplative, and heartbreaking.
Candy Necklaces, 5″ x 5″, glass, paper, and plastic by Emily Martin, 2025.
Black Women Cutting Boards, 13″ x 9.8″, 12″ x 9″, 12″ x 7″, laser engraved woods by Jasmine Iona Brown, 2025.
Deep Peace and Embrace All, 20″ x 26″, oil on canvas by JW Harrington, 2025.
Near the entrance, there’s an eye-catching series of pieces that show off the variety of not only styles, but voices and tones on display in the show. Emily Martin’s Candy Necklaces is a blown glass piece that’s been packaged to look like those 2/$1.00 corner store candies that seem to have existed forever, yet are manufactured by nobody; it’s enough to transport you to days scraping up couch change as a kid. Nearby is Jasmine Iona Brown’s Black Women Cutting Boards, a stark ode to the 300,000 Black women who lost their jobs in the first six months of the Trump administration. It’s a clash of dreamy childhood innocence and the striking injustices of adulthood, with a persistent thread of economic stress running between both.
Some pieces look deeply inward, like JW Harrington’s duo of Deep Peace and Embrace All, which he describes as “mystical self-portraits,” showing himself subsumed by a chaotic universe, but finding peace in the noise. Crystal McDonald’s Undone is another abstract self-portrait, exploring the push and pull of being biracial in a world that frequently defaults to bloodless, binary categorization. The jagged facial features mix beautifully with the supple, expressive watercolors. Shades of Self, too, explores the interplay between one’s internal life and the outside world; Jadyn Johnson’s scene is exploding with energy — a compelling and intuitive expression of connectivity.
The Long Hand of Time, 24″ x 24″, acrylic and ink on canvas board by Sandra Bocas, 2025.
Undone, 36″ x 24″, watercolor, ink, and multimedia paper by Crystal McDonald, 2023.
She Embodies — Her Rising, 60″ x 20″, acrylic, jewelry, beds, foil, metallic ink by TyResha Jones-Smith, 2025.
From personal histories to ancestral, the Black Artists Exhibition has several pieces that look back toward roots in Africa or the Americas. TyResha Jones-Smith’s She Embodies — Her Rising, partially painted with the blackest of black inks, is a celebration of Black African women, with its statuesque central figure embodying a preternatural beauty, adorned in gold. The Long Hand of Time, by Sandra Bocas, depicts an Indigenous family as led by the wise grandmother as they blend in with the sunset reds and oranges of the natural land, with pops of blue clothing helping them to stand out from the background.
There are so many other pieces to get lost in at the Black Artists Exhibition, nestled, as it is in the modest space of The Gallery at TCC. Repurposed art, sculptures, loving portraits (Charles Conner’s warm rendition of comedian and activist Dick Gregory was a pleasant surprise), clothes and quilt-making — all to be discovered at this show. At a time and in a world where being yourself is a political act, this is a show that presents identity in many of its different forms, connecting the personal with the global.
Photos courtesy of Tacoma Community College.
WHAT:
The 4th Annual Black Artists Exhibition
WHEN:
February 11-March 13, 2026: Tuesdays – Thursdays: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; third Thursday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Fridays: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Gallery Talks: February 24, noon – 12:25 p.m.; March 3, noon – 12:25 p.m., 12:30 p.m. – 1 p.m.; March 5, noon – 12:25 p.m., 12:30 p.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE:
The Art Gallery at Tacoma Community College, building 4; 6501 S 19th St., Tacoma
LEARN MORE:
https://www.tacomacc.edu/tcc-life/arts-culture/blackartists
253-460-4306