WASHINGTON – Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences announces Imo Nse Imeh: Monuments to Our Skies, an exhibition by Massachusetts-based artist Imo Nse Imeh about Black identity, featuring 12 paintings from 2019 to the present. Opening on Feb. 3, 2025, at the National Academy of Sciences and running through July 1, 2025, the exhibition is a profound exploration of mental health, faith, and divinity within the Black community.

Key highlights of the exhibition:

1. Bioforms Series: These six portraits, commissioned by the Journal of Biological Psychiatry, explore Black identity through the lens of biological psychiatry, historical trauma, generational memory, faith, spiritualism, and collective healing.

2. Divinity Series: These six paintings represent a reimagining of the Icarus myth, where an African boy with dual identities represents themes of migration, home, spiritual journeys, and transcendence.

Artistic Approach: Imeh’s work integrates India and acrylic inks with charcoal and graphite, creating dynamic and layered canvases that convey deep emotional and historical narratives. The choice of materials significantly impacts the process and the control he exerts over the final piece. The figures in his work are more than representations or abstractions; they are ways of seeing the mind at work, a channeling of memory and thought through the actions of the artist’s hand and eye.

About the Artist: Imo Nse Imeh is a Nigerian American visual artist and scholar of African diaspora art whose work explores historical and philosophical issues around the Black body and cultural identity. He is a professor of art and art history at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. Imeh has made contributions to the visual arts discourse through publications, lectures, exhibitions, and thought-provoking studio art projects that interrogate the ways Black bodies are imagined, ritualized, and transformed.

Imo Nse Imeh: Monuments to Our Skies is on exhibit at the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. The building is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and closed on weekends and holidays. A government-issued photo ID is required. Imeh will speak at the D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, 6:30 p.m. at the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W. For more information, visit www.cpnas.org.

Cultural Programs of the NAS sponsors exhibitions, salons, theatrical readings, and other events that explore
relationships among the arts and sciences. The NAS is a private, nonprofit institution that recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and — with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine — provides science, technology, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

Pictured: Imo Nse Imeh, Hightide Baptism, 2024, India and acrylic ink, oil paint, oil pastel, paper, charcoal, colored pencil, crayon, mylar, and canvas on gesso board, 48 x 48 inches.

Post Type

  • Press Release

Publish Date

January 29, 2025