Adrienne Elise Tarver Makes A Public Declaration About The Beauty of Black Womanhood

The artist’s latest exhibition, ‘She Who Sits,’ is on display across over three hundred bus shelters throughout New York City, Boston, and Chicago.

Adrienne Elise Tarver, With expectation, 2024. Install image. Photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY. Presented by Public Art Fund as a part of Adrienne Elise Tarver: She who sits, an exhibition on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston, Aug 14, 2024 – Nov 24, 2024.

Adrienne Elise Tarver’s newest outdoor exhibition, She Who Sits, is a multi-city experience exploring femininity and the power that is held within the Black matriarchal figure. Presented by the Public Art Fund and media company JCDecaux, the six pieces featured within the exhibition will span across over three hundred bus shelters throughout New York City, Boston, and Chicago.  

The six paintings in She Who Sits feature women seated in different intimate settings, playing with the idea of rejecting perception and reclaiming spaces through the lens of a Black woman. The matriarchal figures within the paintings enact a sense of strength, through the power of radical rest. Taking inspiration from Black actresses, such as the iconic Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne, Tarver created figures that exude a level of elegance, while also portraying maturity, sophistication, and sexiness.

The warm tones and shadows used in the pieces insinuate a lightness these women hold, and although they are seated in relaxed positions, they all exude a self affirming energy.  A few of the works within the exhibit feature a fictional character, Vera Otis, that Tarver has been developing over the last decade. Through Otis’ growth as a character, Tarver is able to explore her own roots and portray stories from her own life as a Black woman.

Dark Star, 2024. Courtesy of Public Art Fund.

Adrienne Elise Tarver is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary artist, who practices painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Her work is led with the intention of highlighting the Black female identity, a group that is largely forgotten not only in the art world, but within the context of society as well.

The Public Art Fund is a non profit organization dedicated to curating free contemporary art pieces, and blending them within various urban spaces in metropolitan cities like New York and beyond. Their exhibitions are free to the public, which allows a larger audience to engage in art without economic restraint. 

‘She Who Sits’ is presented by Public Art Fund and JCDecaux and will be on view across New York City, Boston, and Chicago through November 24.