Opening Reception: October 16, 2021, 1-3 pm

Gallery Hours: Friday-Sunday, Noon – 3 pm  

Exhibition Dates: October 16, 2021-January 30, 2022

Descendants is a new body of work by Dianne Hebbert depicting people of Indigenous descent in collaged paradisiacal landscapes. Through larger than-life representations of real people that claim space, the work celebrates people from Latinx and American Indigenous heritage and the continuation of their cultural traditions as a form of resilience. Portraits include members of the artist’s Nicaraguan Miskito family; youth from the Brooklyn-based Mexican and Latin-American immigrant empowerment organization Mixteca; and descendants of the Lenape tribe that originally inhabited the land surrounding the Old Stone House. The choice of subject matter was inspired by Hebbert’s past work as a teaching artist with Mixteca and visits to the NYC-based Lenape Center events as well as historic Lenape images. The portraits’ backgrounds consist of collaged images of Caribbean landscapes and reserved Indigenous land in the United States. 

Continuing the artist’s ongoing investigation of glorification, migration, and displacement through posture and fashion, this new body of work further pushes experimentation with materials and representation. Inspired by religious Italian renaissance paintings and Egyptian and Buddhist deities, Hebbert incorporates gold to attribute the highest value and esteem to her figures, creating superlative beings.  Site-specific exhibition components include large suspended figures on mylar in the gallery and an outdoor installation featuring traditional Indigineous crops that reference native plants in the Old Stone House (OSH) garden and continued life, growth and adaptation. 

Curated by Katherine Gressel.