Soleé Darrell, ritual is all we have, 2024. 111" x 92". Silk velvet, boat rope, velvet ribbon, found trimmings. Courtesy of the artist and pt. 2 Gallery.

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Join us for a conversation & reception with Emerging Artist Program awardee Soleé Darrell about her solo exhibition Cosmic Ceremony. Darrell will be in conversation with Artist Angela Hennessy.

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About the Exhibition

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Soleé Darrell's Cosmic Ceremony explores color, sound, and texture as tools for healing and self-discovery. This exhibition challenges the monotony of contemporary life and celebrates the vibrancy of human experience and experimentation. Seven paintings and a single soft sculpture beckon viewers to reconnect with their inner selves, the natural world, and the universe. In addition, Darrell’s artworks pursue complex ideas of abstraction, challenge the status quo, and celebrate the rich tapestry of the diaspora. Cosmic Ceremony is not just an exhibition—it honors life, connection, and the force of color.

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On view at MoAD December 18, 2024-February 2, 2025.

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About the Artists

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Soleé Darrell (@soleedarrell) (1989) is a Bermudian born artist based in Northern California. She is self taught and her work is purely intuition-driven. She explores the experience and depth of being a human in this world while connecting with other worlds through practice and meditation. Each stroke encompasses color, vulnerability, passion, texture, and complete faith in the universe. Being from Bermuda and living in the US has given her the unique perspective of place and embracing multiple identities. She is forever fascinated with the idea of things we can never know about our existence, and the self-inflicted suffering that human beings can endure through generations of trying to figure it out. Her hope is to bring some optimism to the viewer and bridge the gap between the intuitive world and the physical world.

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Angela Hennessy (@thehouseofhennessy) is an Oakland based artist and survivor of gun violence. She constructs sculptures and installations with everyday domestic labor—washing, wrapping, stitching, knotting, brushing, and braiding. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Museum of the African Diaspora, Oakland Museum of California, and Pt. 2 Gallery, and is in the collections of the de Young Museum and the Crocker Art Museum. Her audio guides, meditations, and poems have been featured at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, de Young Museum, and SOMArts Gallery.

Hennessy holds an MFA from California College of the Arts where she teaches courses on contemporary narratives of death. For many years she served as a hospice volunteer and death doula working with families on home funerals, death vigils, and grief rituals.

She has received awards from San Francisco Artadia, Svane Family Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Fleishhacker Foundation. Hennessy is on the advisory board of Recompose Seattle and lectures nationally on aesthetic and social practices that mediate the boundary between the living and the dead.

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