P001 CENTER FOCUS
Eliana Carter | Artist
Andrea K. Castillo | Artist
Poochie Collins | Artist
Maria J. Hackett | Artist
Myesha Evon Gardner | Artist
Ashli Owens | Artist
Edolia Stroud | Artist
Polly Irungu | Curator
Joyous Pierce | Curator
CENTER FOCUS
This year many of us have found ourselves in a space of expanded understanding — our collective perspectives have
been deeply developed and informed by significant shifts in culture, and in the atmospheres of both our intimate
spaces as well as the larger society. Informed by both trauma and triumph, these shifts have defined a clear distance
between BEFORE and NOW. And whatever was BEFORE is not just an echo of NOW. Radical distance generated by this
shift has served as an invitation for many overdue revelations, realizations, revolutions, and pieces of understanding
to wade through and over our lives.
For Polly Irungu the Founder of the Black Women Photographer Collective, radical distance offered an invitation of
belonging — specifically, an invitation for her to manifest a vibrant, joy-filled multi-national network, resource, and
support community for Black Women Photographers in which to belong. Birthed out of the racial reckoning of 2020
and to disrupt the notion that it is difficult to discover and commission Black creatives, Black Women Photographers
is a global community and directory of more than 1,000 Black women and non-binary identifying photographers,
spanning more than 46 countries and 32 U.S. states.
Center Focus is the inaugural exhibition for the collective. In
its brevity, it is just the first breath of brilliance of what is sure to be a long luminous life for the collective. Center Focus
is an invitation to the voices of seven dynamic visual storytellers: Eliana Carter, Andrea K. Castillo, Poochie
Collins, Maria J. Hackett, Myesha Evon Gardner, Ashli Owens, and Edölia Stroud. Through their creative practices,
these Black women photographers illuminate layers of warmth, solitude, transition, struggle, love, loss, motherhood,
identity, respect, tenderness, strength, separation, and tradition.
Eliana Carter and Andrea K. Castillo re-shape light and perspective in both intimate and shared spaces — from the
four walls of a bedroom or Grandmother’s ornate kitchen counter to the vast expanse of a familiar skyline or sunset
that have all gained new meaning during a time of separation and seclusion through the pandemic.
The work of Poochie Collins evokes power, beauty, grace, and all of the mystery that comes with the process of self-
reflection and self-reclamation. Maria J. Hackett’s Changing Realities series captures the vulnerability and tenderness
of realities experienced in transition — her work issues a clarion command to the viewer that Kristie Marino, Tiffany,
Princess Ìyánìfá Adzua Boakyewaa Ifáfunmiláyo Opare, and son Prince Boakum be held in their fullness‚ not as subjects
before a lens but rather as souls filled with stories to graciously share with us.
Myesha Evon Gardner pulls us into the corners of life with her work Jaquea Expecting Love which amplifies and
elevates space that is essential to the strength and structure of a place but is often overlooked. Ashli Owens’ work
is playful and dynamic, using shadow, light, depth, and color to capture vibrant portraits of friends with an abstract
edge. Edölia Stroud flexes her deep intuition for timing and her talent for capturing stillness between moments of
movement and heightened emotion from the intimate and deeply personal, to a moment of love caught in passing,
Edölia submerges us in her field of vision and leaves us searching for oxygen.
The layers of gaze shared by these seven artists pull the viewer into focus and invite us to remember the significance
and beauty of our own spaces. An invitation to remember that in a world where we are centered, loved, cared for, in a
world where our souls can rest, where we hold the gaze and will always be the voice that tells our story best.
As you walk through this space we ask that you center the stories of these artists and their lives within their work, lift
them up, celebrate with them, and take time to reflect on your own story, your own journey to this moment of centered
focus. Thank you to all the voices, hands, and hearts that have led to this moment — we hold this space for you.