Beyond Boundaries Black Abstraction in the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Art Collection

'Beyond Boundaries' foregrounds the centrality of Black abstraction within the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Art Collection. Over nearly three decades, the Perrys’ collecting vision has evolved from an early emphasis on figuration to a sustained engagement with contemporary abstraction—reflecting a deeper recognition of abstraction as a critical language through which Black artists have articulated presence beyond representation.

Emerging in parallel with, and often in opposition to, dominant art-historical narratives, Black abstraction has long served as a site of intellectual and formal experimentation. From mid-twentieth-century pioneers to a dynamic cohort of contemporary practitioners, the works assembled here trace a continuum in which material, color, and media become vehicles for encoding histories that exceed the limits of figuration.

Through richly tactile surfaces, layered pigments, and expansive compositional strategies, the artists in 'Beyond Boundaries' mobilize abstraction as a mode of storytelling—one that resists fixed interpretation while remaining deeply rooted in cultural knowledge. In doing so, they challenge longstanding assumptions that abstraction is detached from lived experience, instead asserting it as a space for Black subjectivity.

By centering these practices, 'Beyond Boundaries' contributes to an ongoing reexamination of art history, one that acknowledges the foundational role of Black artists in shaping non-representational art as a site of exploration.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Anita N. Bateman.