Reimagining the Black Figure within the Classical Space

AUP’s Fine Arts Gallery hosts an annual Black History Month exhibition every February. In 2023, alumna Lauren Morris ’20, who produces work under the name LO, was selected to exhibit her show “The Fate of God and His Darlings.” Her striking portraiture reimagines conventions of Christian iconography and Western art through the lens of the contemporary Black experience. The exhibition, which ran from February 2–28, was LO’s third solo show, following two in Atlanta, Georgia.

LO paints Black models using the poses and symbolism of figures from Christianity such as saints, angels and martyrs. She has been influenced by contemporary Black artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Kerry James Marshall, as well as by the global #BlackLivesMatter movement following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020. She has been keen to use such symbolism to show the joy and hopefulness of the Black experience, an effect increased due to her decision to choose her friends, in some cases also AUP alumni, as models. “These are people whom I love and whom I think are beautiful,” she explains. “I’m so glad I got to encapsulate their youth.”