Artist Ja'Tovia Gary comes home with an exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art

It’s home, sweet home for Ja’Tovia Gary.

Gary’s exhibition I Know It Was The Blood is part of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Concentrations series, now on view through Nov. 5.

Born and raised in Dallas, Gary studied theater at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the Dallas Arts District. Upon graduation, she moved to New York City, earning degrees from Brooklyn College and The School of Visual Arts.

Using her theatrical studies as a foundation, Gary developed into an interdisciplinary artist who uses film, installation and language through a Black feminist lens to challenge the assumed neutrality of archival sources and the historical record.

Kimberly Richard

Her work is personal, often inspired by her own family and centered on Gary’s philosophy of care.

“Her work is rooted in place, time and family forming a rich portrait of the Black American South, but it also transcends,” said Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the museum’s Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and curator of this exhibition.

Walking into the exhibition is like walking into someone’s home. On a wall is a neon work, Citational Ethic, featuring a quote from Black feminist scholar Saidiya Hartman, “Care is the antidote to violence.” The piece is paired with a living room scene with La-Z-Boy recliner, a framed photograph of Gary’s mother, and a tower of three monitors.

“To me, this is a great companion piece for this piece which is called Precious Memories. This piece is sort of a surrealist reimagining of my childhood home,” Gary said.

The top monitor features Louis Armstrong performing When it’s Sleepy Time Down South along with other archetypes of Blackness. Gary interrupts these stereotypes by scratching, painting and etching into the surface of the film, a hallmark of Gary’s artistic practice. The middle monitor is footage from her stepfather’s funeral, depicting familiar and timeless rituals of grief. The third monitor shows a heavily pixelated pornographic film that is so distorted that no figures are apparent and only occasionally is there a sense that something explicit is happening.

Combined the works speak to the story people tell themselves about their lives, their communities,  and their place in the world and how people cope with adversity.    

“This entire installation is about the violence of the interior,” Gary said. “Whether we’re talking about the violence of a country, the violence of a community, or the violence of a family, how do we counter that with care?”

Kimberly Richard

At the center of the exhibition is In my mother’s house there are many, many…, a sculpture commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art that will become a part of the museum’s collection. The sculpture takes the form of an armillary sphere, an ancient device used across cultures to visualize the cosmos.

“Ja’Tovia looks to symbols of ancient knowledge of past cultures to celebrate not only her ancestors but also to point the way toward healing from collective trauma,” Brodbeck said.

The armillary sphere is motorized and covered in cotton balls, Gary’s way of reclaiming something associated with slavery and violent history.

“It is covered with thousands of cotton balls. My family is from Texas and Arkansas, and they used to chop cotton in order to put themselves through school and feed their family. So, cotton is very loaded, but it is also something that is very beautiful,” Gary said.

Projected onto the textured surface of the sphere are excerpts from Gary’s feature-length memoir film, Mitochondrial Montage. Gary interviewed family members, ex-boyfriends and lovers and even her therapist, but the strongest voices to come through the film are of her family’s matriarchs. Gary’s great aunt, Aunt Mae, can be heard throughout the film, talking about her own documentation of the family throughout the decades.

The work reflects the relationships and experiences that shaped her and pushed her forward into the world.

“Who are we in relation to our closest foundational relationships? Who would they say you are? Who are you in relationship to your mother and what has been passed down in blood?” Gary said. “And how can we counter the ancestral trauma with ancestral wisdom?”

Kimberly Richard

The exhibition also features two paintings, Mama’s Babies and Daddy, Maybe. The mixed-media works are a new medium for the artist.

“This is my first painting. Well, there were a few before, but they were really trash, so I threw them away,” Gary said.

Both paintings feature broken frames, signaling Gary’s determination not to be constrained by labels or genres.

“I often characterize my practice as exploding frames so can we bring that ethos and move beyond genres and the impulse to index?” Gary said.

Together the five works celebrate the power of ancestral knowledge, creating an intimate homecoming as Gary’s first solo museum exhibition in Dallas.

“I am so happy to be home,” Gary said.

Learn more: Dallas Museum of Art