Butterflies emphasize the gaze in this portrait from Chelle Barbour’s “Volume I: Women of the African Diaspora”

If Afrofuturism’s purpose is to imagine new futures and rewrite past narratives, Chelle Barbour’s collage portraits embrace a surrealist approach to keep those narratives open, vibrant and strange. An exhibition at Ephraim’s Granary Arts, featuring scores of works by the LA-based artist, creates an artistic dialogue that does not simply retell stories but rather reimagines them, inviting viewers to explore the vast possibilities of identity and existence through a lens that is at once historical and speculative.

With a few larger exceptions on paper, her complex visual compositions are set upon backgrounds of vintage newspapers, telling stories that feel simultaneously universal and intimate. Newsprint carries the “first draft” of history and in the works suggests a commentary on the transitory nature of current events compared to the enduring presence of cultural identity. Her insertion of Black imagery atop these pages speaks to a reclamation of history, asserting the presence and influence of Black narratives within the broader historical dialogue.

Each work, measuring 7 1/4 by 8 inches, is a testament to Black dignity, frequently adorned with jewels, insects, or flora, and crowned with headdresses symbolizing power and wisdom. Butterflies, emblematic of hope and transformation, are a recurrent motif. As they often do in portraits, the eyes dominate suggesting a vision of the future that is transformative and enigmatic, true to the surrealists’ quest to unlock the subconscious and illuminate the mysterious. The tactile quality of the torn edges, the layering of materials, and the varying texture contribute to a sensory experience that compels the observer to ponder the relationship between the tangible and the intangible aspects of culture and time.

Selections from Chelle Barbour’s “Volume II: Vintage Works.”

Barbour’s body of work is inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’ “American Negro” exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition, in which the famous African American sociologist organized 363 photographs of African Americans into albums entitled “Types of American Negroes” — the point being there really was no “type.”

This original exhibition is the source for Barbour’s first body of 25 works, portraits from Dubois’ series set against a backdrop newspapers from the 1880s. These works do not rely on the unexpected juxtapositions of surrealism that dominate the rest of the exhibition but instead offer a more straightforward representation. The images appear as classical portraits, inviting contemplation on the dignity, poise, and quiet strength embodied by these women. There is a reverent simplicity in these pieces, a stripping away of the fantastical to reveal the raw essence and enduring spirit of their subjects. Their stories are not reimagined through the lens of the future or the subconscious but are presented as a firm testament to their place in history.

Collages from Chelle Barbour’s “Volume I: Women of the African Diaspora”

By contrast, the rest of the exhibition launches into the speculative jump to the future or the dream-like amalgamations of the surreal.  “Women of the African Diaspora” is an explosion of world building in which the portraits range from east to west and past to present. “Remarkable Women” pays tribute to a pantheon of influential contemporary Black women, integrating luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, Nina Simone, Rosa Parks and Stacey Abrams into her collages. These portraits intertwine the personal narratives of these iconic figures with the broader narrative of Black excellence and influence in modern society. Her most exuberant and detailed work seems reserved for the “Primarily Authors” section: fiction writers like Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith, poets like Amanda Gorman and Robin Coste Lewis and cultural theorists like bell hooks and Roxane Gay. By featuring renowned figures, Barbour elevates her discourse to include the realms of politics, literature, media, and culture, where these women have left indelible marks.

Each of these portraits is concrete and individual, but also stands as a beacon of potentiality, representing not just a single story but a spectrum of narratives that challenge and expand upon the established canon. Through Chelle Barbour’s lens, we are reminded that the narratives we inherit are not fixed but are constantly evolving tapestries, rich with the potential to be woven into something new, strange, and wonderful.

Selections from “Volume III: Remarkable Women”

CHELLE BARBOUR / Juxtaposing Afro-Surrealism, Granary Arts, Ephraim, through May 3.

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.