The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is presenting a groundbreaking exhibition featuring the work of artist Tawny Chatmon. Titled "Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies," the exhibition showcases the artist's powerful approach to creating stunning portraits that challenge racism and erasure through stylistic languages borrowed from historical decorative motifs and powerful African American cultural markers. The exhibition runs through March 8, 2026, and marks Chatmon's first museum exhibition in Washington, D.C.
The comprehensive exhibition brings together more than 25 large-format photographs from recent series dating from 2019 to the present. These striking works demonstrate Chatmon's commitment to celebrating Black childhood, Black resistance, and self-determination, often featuring members of her own family as subjects. Her approach creates portraits of remarkable beauty and commanding presence that confront the historical absence and devaluation of Black bodies in Western art.
While rooted in photography, Chatmon's practice extends far beyond traditional photographic techniques. She intensifies her works through meticulous manual processes, sophisticated staging, and digital manipulations that transform her images into complex artistic statements. The artist sometimes enhances her prints with hand-applied acrylic paints, 24-karat gold leaf, semi-precious stones, pearls, thread, and other carefully selected materials that add layers of meaning and visual richness to each piece.
The presentation of Chatmon's work is equally important to its impact. She frames her portraits in antique gilded frames or contemporary baroque-style frames, choices that lend her subjects a gravity that often belies their youth. These deliberate interventions serve to confront the absence, exclusion, and devaluation of Black bodies that has historically characterized Western art, positioning her young subjects as worthy of the same reverence traditionally reserved for European nobility and religious figures.
"Do the visual arts have redemptive power? Do artists have the ability to control and shift the narrative through their work?" Chatmon explains. "These are questions that fuel my creative process. I believe both propositions are true. Just as literature remains a tool for shaping the human psyche, the visual arts possess the same capacity."
The exhibition "Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies" will remain on display until March 8, 2026, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, located at 1250 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20005. Additional information about the exhibition is available at https://nmwa.org/.
