Jessica Lynne will write a series of essays that will examine the work of Black women artists living and working in the U.S. South in order to illuminate intergenerational histories of Black Southern female cultural production. By engaging the work of figures like the late visual artist and architect Amaza Lee Meredith, and living artists such as Thulani Davis, Samella Lewis, Michelle Polissaint, Lynne will create a body of writing that places these artists in conversation with their peers and successors—formal and conceptual— so that we might continue to extend and deepen the archive of Black women artists that art criticism has not always served.
Jessica Lynne is a writer and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in Art in America, The Believer, BOMB, The Nation, frieze, and in other publications. She is also the recipient of a 2020 Graham Foundation Research and Development Award. Lynne currently lives and works in coastal Virginia.