The exhibition presents works inspired by local and national histories of activism, layered with bold colors, collage-like compositions, and textured surfaces. By merging aesthetic experimentation with archival research, Jackson creates powerful visual narratives that uncover overlooked struggles and resistance movements. Accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and public programs, the show invites audiences to reflect on the connections between art, community, and civic life.

Jackson’s work in “Across the Universe” spans a variety of media and modes of presentation. Some artworks are large abstract‐geometric paintings with halftone lines, crosshatching, washes and opaque color fields; others are sculptural or textile works that incorporate awning-style structures extending into the space, vinyl strips casting colored shadows, and layered papers and ephemera. Video installations appear, often drawing on local histories (e.g., events in Houston, court cases, stories from Black communities) to overlay archival footage, interviews, reenactments, or staged performance. An example is Vibrating Boundaries (Law of the Land) (Self Portrait as Tatyana, Dajerria, and Sandra), which layers video clips from incidents of racial violence (McKinney pool party; Sandra Bland case) with images of local artists in positions that mirror both aggressors and the vulnerable. Another work, Minute by Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023 / Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020), interweaves personal and family history (including recordings, photography) with broader themes of grieving and memory during the pandemic. Through such work, Jackson creates immersive environments that ask the viewer to reckon with history—not just as backdrop, but as active force shaping identity, loss, and resistance.

Kandy G Lopez: Allegiance to the People is on view at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, 4807 Caroline Street, Houston, TX 77004, from March 27, 2026 through June 6, 2026. The exhibition presents work by Kandy G. Lopez, an Afro-Caribbean American multidisciplinary portrait artist whose practice is rooted in portraiture, textile layering, and bold color. Curated by Danielle Finnerman, the show is Lopez’s first solo exhibition in Texas and introduces Houston audiences to a body of work that foregrounds the dignity and visibility of people too often left out of dominant visual narratives. Lopez, who was born in New Jersey and raised in South Florida by Dominican parents, draws on diasporic experience and the negotiation of identity across cultures. Her portraits use layered textiles, dynamic color, and striking figuration to reflect lived experience rather than abstraction alone. The figures in her work are drawn from people she encounters in daily life, and each portrait carries themes of cultural memory, resilience, vulnerability, and self-possession. At the Houston Museum of African American Culture, Allegiance to the People positions portraiture as an act of recognition and affirmation. The exhibition emphasizes Lopez’s commitment to representing individuals not as symbols, but as fully realized people whose lives hold complexity, beauty, and historical weight. Runs through June 6, 2026.