A precariously long holiday weekend can lead to overcommitting, being noncommittal, or not knowing which exhibitions to see while catching up with family, friends, and maybe some if not a lot of fireworks. At the top of my list this weekend was the opening of “Home Scents, Home Sense, Home Cents,” Nikkolos Mohammed’s first solo exhibition at Damaris Rivera and Kim Alexander’s artist-run space, Age of Art Multiples.

Arriving at the exhibition I walked up to sprinkled groups of supportive, jovial friends, family, and students. The aroma of burning incense spread a calm yet communicable energy throughout (and who doesn’t love burning incense?). The gallerygoers that I noticed ping-ponging inside and outside the show all had their favorites, pointing out details and highlighting parts that stood out to them. Mohammed with his luminous smile took time to speak to me about the show’s center and putting weight into the values and ideas of the family or home with the core of time being about everyone right now—his work, I thought, spoke to the waif that can be found within all of us at times.

 

Letting Mohammed return to his attendees and listening to some of the DJing of Roy Rollin and Mike Reesé, (both associated with the Dreamhaus nonprofit) with the author of Deep Blue Giant, MJ Glover, the evening was swaddled in a long-lasting vibe.

 

The only thing missing was an epigraph with the etching of “You will leave here more full than when you came,” somewhere on some wall, a hidden secret like tonight.