Upcoming, Current and Past Exhibitions
Arnika Dawkins Gallery opened, via an Artsy exclusive exhibition – Revisiting Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad – a timely exploration of stunning photographs created by Jeanine Michna-Bales featuring rarely-seen imagery from this widely critically acclaimed body of work. The show will be on view from August 4 - 31, 2023.
Light in Four Acts: Between Science and Poetics at the Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery at Duke University
Light in Four Acts: Between Science and Poetics, a group exhibition that pulled work from the Archive of Documentary Arts Collection at Duke University, was on view from April 16, through September 18, 2022 at the Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery. Four images from Through Darkness to Light were part of the show curated by Emily MacDiarmid. Other artists include Mariette Pathy Allen, Teju Cole, Bruce Davidson, Frank Espada, Gjon Mili, Zanele Muholi, Jay Turner Frey Seawell, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Two images from Through Darkness to Light were on display at The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN as part of the exhibition Beyond the Frame: Celebrating 70 Years of Collecting. The show was on view from January 28, 2022 - May 1, 2022.
Standing Together: Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage was on view at Arnika Dawkins Gallery in Atlanta, GA October 8 - December 3, 2021.
STANDING TOGETHER: Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage was on view at PDNB Gallery in Dallas, TX August 28 through November 13, 2021.
Four images from Through Darkness to Light were a part of Shadow to Substance at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, my alma mater. The group exhibition was on view from July 27, 2021 - February 27, 2022.
In 2021, as The Phillips Collection – America’s first museum of modern art – celebrated its centennial. Seeing Differently, highlighted over 200 works by artists from the 19th century to the present and explored the complexities of our ever-changing world through themes of identity, history, place and the senses – with special focus on recent acquisitions, including prints from Through Darkness to Light, that showcase how the museum’s dynamic collection continues to evolve.
I was honored to be asked by Conduit Gallery artist, Susan Kae Grant, to colloborate with her and Meg Griffiths on a piece for the group exhibition fundraiser for The Emergency Artists’ Support League and the Black Voters Matter Fund.
SUFFRAGENOW: A 19th Amendment Centennial Celebration Exhibition this virtual exhibition, hosted by the Elisabet New Museum, was on view through January 31, 2021.
Juneteenth | Celebrating Freedom This virtual exhibition from Arnika Dawkins Gallery on Artsy from June 19 - July 30, 2020 featured photography by nationally renowned, mid-career, and emerging photographers. The exhibition and artists in participation, endeavor to continue a conversation about race in America.
Women We Have Known: Photographs by Women Artists
was on view at the gallery and on Artsy.net from May 16 - August 29, 2020
[Installation images by Steven Brooke]
During the late 1700s and early 1800s, enslaved Africans escaped into the American wilderness and formed their own communities, sometimes in isolation, and other times near indigenous populations. They became known as “cimarrón” or maroon communities. One such southern haven was the area of land that was to become the state of Florida, and the wilderness of the Everglades.
In commemoration of Black History Month, Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) presents The Four Moments of the Sun: Hidden Lands of Florida’s Maroon Communities, an exhibition featuring the work of AIRIE Fellow Jeanine Michna-Bales. Bringing together contemporary photography, oral and written histories and extensive historical research, Michna-Bales weaves together the forgotten stories of Florida’s Maroon communities, groups of former slaves who established their own societies in the wilderness of 18th and 19th century Florida.
Michna-Bales narrates this history of escaped slaves through a visual timeline that spans the perimeter of the gallery walls, annotated by historical notes and photographs by the artist shot on site at historical locations. Audio excerpts from government records, period texts, newspapers, letters and oral histories will play on loop throughout the gallery, along with ambient noises found in the forests and swamps used for refuge.
Florida’s Maroon Communities were bands of former slaves who had in established societies of their own in different areas of Florida including remote locations such as the Everglades, places where they could not easily be surprised by soldiers or slave catchers.
Curated by Deborah Mitchell.
The exhibition was on view at the AIRIE Nest Gallery in the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center in Everglades National Park: 40001 State Hwy 9336, Homestead, FL 33034.
Toughened to Wind and Sun: Women Photographing the Landscape at Portland Art Museum has two images from Through Darkness to Light included in their group exhibition that was on view through March 8, 2020.
Four images from Through Darkness to Light are part of the traveling exhibition Southbound. The exhibition was on view at the Hunter Museum of America Art in Chattanooga, TN from January 31 through April 26, 2020.
Through Darkness to Light was a part of the group exhibition Comer Collection: “Echoes of History”.
October 28, 2019 - November 22, 2019
Nebula Gallery, McDermott Library, UT Dallas
The collective memory of historic events is often inextricably linked with the place of its occurrence. In this exhibition, photographers Noel Clark, Jeanine Michna-Bales and Kim Stringfellow explore how the Civil War, the Underground Railroad and the Works Progress Administration altered the U.S. landscape and are indelibly imprinted on the land. Curated by UT Dallas PhD candidate Jessica Ingle.
Arnika Dawkins Photographic Fine Art Gallery and PDNB Gallery brought Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad back to AIPAD The Photography Show 2019.
Marking the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the first slave ships in the United States, this exhibition features selections from Jeanine Michna-Bales’s Through Darkness to Light: Photographs along the Underground Railroad series from the collection of Julia J. Norrell. After researching the subject for more than a decade, Michna-Bales captured various sites that freedom-seekers traveled along the Underground Railroad. Recalling the fugitives who sought refuge in the dark chambers of night, Michna-Bales conjures their frightful journeys through her mysterious, night-time landscapes. One of the few visual records on the subject, this body of work “illuminate[s] the darkened corners of our shared history,” while prompting reflection about its continued reverberations in our global world. The exhibition was on view through May 12, 2019.
Through Darkness to Light is a part of the group traveling exhibition Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, an unprecedented photography exhibition that comprises fifty-six photographers' visions of the South.
PDNB Gallery was at the 2018 Dallas Art Fair with Through Darkness to Light.
Arnika Dawkins Gallery brought Through Darkness to Light to The 2018 Photography Show by AIPAD.
Through Darkness to Light was on view at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center through June 30, 2017. The exhibition was brought to Charlottesville as part of the 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book.
PDNB Gallery opened Through Darkness to Light in February of 2017 with an artist talk and book signing. An additional artist talk highlighted Jackie Rockwell reading an essay she had written in reaction to viewing the show as part of a college photography course.
Through Darkness to Light opened at Arnika Dawkins Gallery in February 2017 with an artist talk and book signing.
As part of the 2015 New Orleans Photo Alliance PhotoNOLA Festival Jeanine Michna-Bales was awarded the top Portfolio Review Prize by the reviewers that included photography curators, editors, publishers, gallery owners and other industry professionals, resulting in a solo show at the NOPA Gallery during PhotoNOLA 2016. The exhibition was entitled TWO PROJECTS: An Overview.
Frack-tured was a part of Perspectives at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts in Longview, Texas at the beginning of 2016.
Denison Museum at Denison University hosted Through Darkness to Light during the Fall 2015 semester. The curriculum for several classes was built around the exhibition that also featured work from Glen Ligon, Kara Walker and Carrie Mae Weems. Michna-Bales visited with a few classes and groups, as well as giving an artist talk at the opening.
An image from Frack-tured was chosen to be a part of Newspace Now: 2015 Members' Salon at Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Oregon.
Jeanine Michna-Bales and the project Through Darkness to Light were chosen to be a part of Moving Walls 23: Journeys from the Documentary Photography Project at Open Society Foundations. The group show also includes work from Glenna Gordon, Dionysis Kouris, Liam Maloney, and Shahria Sharmin and was curated by Susan Meiselas and Stuart Alexander.
“The photographers in Moving Walls 23: Journeys honor the audacity, resourcefulness, and creativity of people carving out new opportunities and realities. Whether escaping the bondage of slavery, fleeing war and hardship, or creating spaces to make their voices heard, they are all pursuing avenues toward a more self-determined future.”
Through Darkness to Light was a part of Southern Exposure: Portraits of a Changing Landscape at the Museum of Contemporary Art | Jacksonville in 2015. Other participating artists included William Christenberry, Deborah Luster, Sally Mann, Richard Misrach, Andrew Moore and Alec Soth.
Images courtesy Doug Eng and MOCA | Jacksonville.
Michna-Bales was awarded a Beth Block Juried Membership Honoraria by juror Malcolm Daniel as part of the 32nd Annual Juried Membership Exhibition at Houston Center for Photography in 2014.
The Curve, 2014 CENTER Award Winners Traveling Show, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Denver, Colorado.
Through Darkness to Light was awarded First Place in the Gallerist's Choice category by juror Steffi Schulze in the CENTER 2014 Choice Awards resulting in a scholarship to Review Santa Fe 2014 and being exhibited as part of the group show, The Curve, 2014 CENTER Award Winners Show.
The Curve, 2014 CENTER Award Winners Show at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.