Join us at the Museum on Saturday, November 14th from 5 PM – 7 PM for an exciting Samella Lewis Exhibition Panel moderated by Richard May & with Panelists Dr. Courtney Baker, and Mary Harris.
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Richard May Bio: Originally from Chicago, Richard Allen May III is a 2025 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient, independent curator, and educator at Chaffey College, CSU Fullerton, CSU San Bernardino, ArtCenter College of Design, and Bowie State University — an HBCU in Maryland, where he teaches art history online. He has contributed to Artillery for over eight years and wrote the foreword to AFRICOBRA: Experimental Art Toward a School of Thought (Duke University Press, 2020).
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Dr. Courtney Baker Bio: Courtney R. Baker, Ph.D., is a cultural critic and scholar whose work reveals how Black art, film, and visual culture teach us to see. She studies the stories told about Black life — and the interpretive brilliance with which Black women and global Black communities read, resist, and transform those narratives. She is the author of Humane Insight, a groundbreaking study of how images of Black suffering circulate and what it means to look with care rather than spectacle. Courtney brings humane clarity to questions of representation, justice, and freedom across her writing, teaching, and public work. She is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and the founding chair of Black Studies at Occidental College.
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Mary Harris Bio: Mary Harris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1991. She is a visual artist, muralist, and teaching artist based in Los Angeles whose work explores identity, cultural memory, and the dignity of everyday people. Drawing on her African American heritage and her faith, she uses expressive color, portraiture, and storytelling to examine history, belonging, and human connection. Based at Beacon Arts in Inglewood, Harris’s practice spans studio painting, public murals, live art experiences, and educational workshops. She recently completed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Teaching Artist Grant cohort. Through both her artwork and teaching, Harris creates opportunities for reflection, creative expression, and community engagement.
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‘Samella! Black as Lacquer & Iron’ is on view from now until November 15, 2026. Catch it before it’s gone!
