OH Art Foundation Presents
2nd Annual Black History Festival of the Arts
Rephrasis en Noir
Open Call Group Exhibition Curated by Candace Hunter
January 16th 2026 - March 15th 2026
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2nd Annual Black History Festival of the Arts
Rephrasis en Noir
January 16th 2026 - March 15th 2026
The OH Art Foundation is proud to present the 2nd Annual Black History Festival of the Arts, an expansive multi-gallery experience celebrating the stories, dualities, and cultural richness of the BIPOC experience in the U.S., opening Friday, January 16, 2026 at Zhou B Art Center.
Opening Reception January 16th 2026 7pm - 10pm
Location: OH Art Foundation, 2nd fl. and 3rd fl. Gallery of Zhou B Art Center
1029 W 35th Chicago IL 60609
"Rephrasis en Noir", Open call Group Exhibition curated by Candace Hunter @ 2nd fl. Gallery
Selected Visual Artists
Chris G. Abara, Renee Baker, Kari Blak, Rose Blouin, Monica Brown,
Keith Conner, Phillip Cotton, Rhonda Gray, Juarez Hawkins, Senyah Haynes, Morgan Reneé Hill, Jennifer Hodges, Jesse Howard, Candace Hunter, Jermaine Jackson, Malika Jackson,
Natalie Jackson, Jason E. Jones, Nesha Logan, Lyssa Lovejoy, Thomas Lucas, Reggie McFly, Courtney Nzeribe, Earica Parrish, Bri Robinson, Tony Smith, Dorian Sylvain, Pearlie Taylor, Norman Teague, Markel Thomas, Arlene Turner-Crawford, Antonio Wade, Martha Wade,
Tanya Ward, Reisha Williams, Thomas Williams, Eli Williamson, Sadie Woods, and Arthur Wright
Black Cinema: “Echoes of Freedom: From Caricature to Celebration”
By Renee Baker, January 16th - February 13th 2026 @ 2nd fl. Gallery
“The Power of Belief”, Solo Exhibition by Jeff Beckham
Curated by Yue Ren, January 16th - February 15th 2026 @ 3rd fl. Gallery
Opening Reception & Performances, January 16th, 2026 7:30 - 9:30 pm
Music performances with AACM musicians
Coco Elysses & Fred Jackson
Art Turk Burton & Ed House
“Remembering Qualities of your Soul and Joyfully living your God self”
DYNAMIC BREATH AND MOVEMENT
Interactive performance & workshops by Paul L. Hannah M.D. Master Teacher
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Opening/Closing Reception February 20th 2026 7pm -10pm
Location: OH Art Foundation, 2nd fl. and 3rd fl. Gallery of Zhou B Art Center
1029 W 35th Chicago IL 60609
“The Space Between”, in collaboration with WILD YAMS
Curated by Wisdom Baty, February 20th - March 15th 2026 @ 3rd fl. Gallery
Closing Reception Performances, February 20th, 2026 8pm - 9pm
Neo-opera LANGSTON HUGHES: BOIL IT DOWN, Written by Renee' C. Baker,, featuring the AACM VOCAL ENSEMBLE WITH Modern Black Music Ensemble @ 2nd fl. Gallery
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Morgan Street Panel Discussion January 22nd @ 3pm - 5pm
“Ink Stains: Black Writers and Artists”
Panelists : Candace Hunter, Juarez Hawkins, and Alex Breland
Location: Bad Owl Coffee House, 3315 S Morgan Chicago.
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About Open Call Group Exhibition, 2nd fl. Gallery of Zhou B Art Center
Rephrasis en Noir brings the written brilliance of Black literature into visual form—an act of translation, homage, and expansion. This exhibition explores how artists draw upon the literary canon that has long examined, interpreted, and fortified Black culture. Through image, gesture, and material, the works on view reimagine the poetics of the Black experience: its histories, its insurgent imagination, its interior worlds, and its ongoing reinvention.
Black literature has always been more than text on a page; it is theory, testimony, prophecy, and rhythm. It holds memory and futurity in constant dialogue. The artists in Rephrasis en Noir respond to this lineage not by illustrating it, but by engaging in a call-and-response across mediums—allowing novels, poems, oral traditions, and essays to manifest as color, form, sound, and spatial presence. Their works channel the intellectual power of writers who have shaped our understanding of Black life while asserting their own visual language as part of that continuum.
This exhibition invites viewers to witness what happens when literary thought becomes embodied, when metaphor becomes material, when narrative becomes gesture. Rephrasis en Noir is a reminder that Black cultural production is expansive and interwoven—its stories spoken, written, and now seen.
About the Curator:
Candace Hunter is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, curator and advocate whose work interrogates history, identity and transformation through collage, painting, installation and performance. Drawing on found materials—vintage maps, magazine clippings, cloth, repurposed magazines—Hunter re-assembles landscapes of memory, politics and culture into rich mixed-media works that both celebrate and critique the legacies of race, place and power.
Hunter has exhibited widely—her solo exhibitions Dust in Their Veins and Hooded Truths premiered in Chicago (at the DuSable Museum of African American History and the South Side Community Art Center) and traveled nationally. Her contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 3Arts Next Level Award (2021), the Elevate Climate Changemakers Award (2022) and the 3Arts Award (2016).
As curator of this Open Call, Hunter brings a deep commitment to narrative, community-engaged practice and making visible the threads of history that connect past, present and future.
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