Presented at the Dallas Museum of Art, Naudline Pierre’s first solo museum exhibition, What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared, showcases a series of nine large-scale paintings depicting supernatural narratives that expand Black possibility. The work shifts the lens of Afro-surrealism toward possibility by considering the “invisible” as interconnected to Black being and that this connection is devoutly sustaining the past, present, and future.
Pierre’s multi-dimensional exhibition guides and guards a central protagonist toward discovery and fulfillment. Depicted in sweeping layers of vibrant hues these metamorphic paintings open visually rich and vivid portals for contemplation. The work offers a transitional space to encounter and question the concept of self and to consider the human story as a singular chapter in modern life. The celestial figures in Pierre’s paintings have densely feathered wings that prompt meditations on freedom, futurism, femmehood, and the farce of Black extinction.
Protection. Protector. Protected. The series’ protagonist traverses a myriad of curious realms and divined encounters as she confronts the central motifs of flight and fire. Never alone in the paintings, survival depends on community, on kinship. There is assurance in this world of wonderment, where grace and miracle are natural designs. Everything held by a black wing.
Even the angels have angels.
I.
Am I heavy Inheritor, when I dream?
*
Nearer to your own star
A private light in your ear
Or is it ancestor
Humming the hymn of your name
The feathered choir at your hip?
You are not miracle, but
Near.
Not majesty, that belongs
To the crown holder, though
They rise toward you
Absent of capture, of fear
Your knee lain against
A familiar dark with its perfect
Geometry.
To be alive in the distance
To be held this way
Wholly attended at the center
One hand gracing your rib
The other ushering your chest.
And the crowned woman
Knows. She’s been here before.
Owns the velvet responsibility.
And is this what could be
For me
An easy gasp
At my arrival
Proof a halo exists
Heavy with freedom
And bright constructions?
II.
My body anchored a million futures away
*
I whole myself to safety / held by a black wing /
The worldly error of my body / newly discovered as a sun /
I whole myself to light / the simple blue flame /
Akin to a flower / carrying kind water /
I whole myself to desire / as if never taught to call /
A black bird bad / forget that wings ignite the dead /
I whole myself to trust / to others entering the dream /
By what appears a northeast star / lost and learning orange /
I whole myself to invitation / witness the vibrant assembly /
Who gestures toward me a name / seraphic, the burning one /
I whole myself somewhere / a smoke black universe /
Observing a new genesis / the pageantry of your gaze /
I whole myself elsewhere / lit and lifted in a bow-line /
Swallowing every dark thing / and exploding light /
III.
This dream, I fall toward
*
a rift—
she wakes
elsewhere.
what doesn’t exist:
hard. sharp.
all the brown labor
of memory.
the wet fatigue
of birth.
everyone lifted
held.
the red of her
body
does not mean
anger.
they burn with a
rude joy
luminous. seen.
no fading
horizon
—and she gives away her hands
the remaining evidence
from which she has made
with no one left to worship
the black flame of miracle
even the angels have angels
gravity, a choice
all a world’s colors in her wing
she conjures anything
gives herself instruction
something to wade
hold me this way,
hold on, hold tight
somewhere, still grows
and the arrival leans quiet.
Am I heavy Inheritor, when I dream?
My body anchored a million futures away
This dream, I fall toward
