Artwork by artist Angel Abreu depicts a man sitting in a black cloud, with a backdrop of book pages.
Artwork by artist Angel Abreu depicts a man sitting in a black cloud, with a backdrop of book pages.

Crossing Narratives

Crossing Narratives
Augusta Savage Gallery

By Angel Abreu

March 27 – May 8
Opening reception: March 27
Register

As artist-in-residence at Augusta Savage Gallery, Angel Abreu embarks on an artistic exploration of the novel James, Percival Everett’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of the formerly enslaved Jim. Like the novel, Abreu’s work challenges dominant narratives around race, agency, and representation in American literature and culture. Through visual reinterpretation, Crossing Narratives invites audiences to reconsider Jim’s journey as one of resilience and self-emancipation, offering a bold counternarrative to traditional portrayals of Black figures in classic American texts. In the lead-up to the exhibition, Abreu led a workshop centered on James, generating new works in collaboration with participants for inclusion in the show.

Artist Angel Abreu, wearing a blue button down, stands in an art gallery with his arms crossed.
Angel Abreu

Angel Abreu is an artist, writer, and educator who studied philosophy, art history and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. Abreu now heads the art collaborative Studio K.O.S. (formerly Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival K.O.S.) that was based in the South Bronx, New York. He joined the collaborative in 1986 at twelve years old and has been a steadfast member working on all major works, projects, and exhibitions. His work has been represented at more than 120 public institutional collections worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition to Abreu’s work with Studio K.O.S., his individual painting practice is based on a study of literature, music, and social practice. Abreu is a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Abreu is the Wallace Wilson Teaching Fellow at his alma mater, the Deerfield Academy.