Chris Friday drawings of African American escapism

In an ever-changing social landscape, artist Chris Friday finds rest and freedom in her childhood memories filled with quietude, joy and love. These memories — overwhelmingly potent and deeply rooted — inspire her first solo museum exhibition, “Where We Never Grow Old,” opened May 4, 2025 at the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and on view through August 10, 2025.

Friday’s multi-disciplinary practice explores memory and nostalgia, revealing their power to preserve community and identity and provide a temporary escape from modern injustices.

“While breathtaking in its exquisite realism, Chris Friday’s art transcends mere representation,” Rangsook Yoon, senior curator, Sarasota Art Museum, said. “With her distinct visual language that evokes awe and serene reflection, she shares intimate stories passed down through generations. Her stunning and moving work invites us to listen, understand and recognize the sources of resilience that sustain life and cultivate enduring freedom: family, faith, love and shared communal experiences.”

“Where We Never Grow Old” transports visitors to “incorruptible environments,” imagined sanctuaries anchored in nostalgia, family, tradition, spirituality and culture. The centuries-old practice of creating alternate realities for survival, inherent in Black American culture, is the method by which the Black community persevered through slavery and the Civil Rights Movement and remains steadfast despite present-day injustices.

Friday’s monumental, unfixed chalk drawings of Black children resting alongside people whom they hold dear celebrate close family connections. She combines iconography of shared cultural experiences with her own childhood memories to produce scenes that seem to float in space rather than be grounded in any one place or reality.

Most of the drawings begin with photographs. By taking the pictures herself, Friday strengthens her personal connection to the image she renders. She then devotes hundreds of hours to complete each monumental chalk drawing, a significant amount of labor required to achieve those moments of rest. The subjects’ youthfulness, frozen in time yet mutable due to their medium, evokes the false comfort of an era unburdened with life’s harsh realities and the potential for that to change at any moment.

“Many of the Miami neighborhoods and places I grew up in and around are being gentrified out of existence,” Friday said. “The music has been turned off by noise complaints, the elders are passing away, their houses have been sold and their recipes are lost. Black American traditions, culture and history seem as though it is not being allowed to grow old, as if it is unworthy of protection and preservation.”

Friday, best known for her black and white aesthetic, introduces the color gold through ceramic sculptures that represent cultural iconography such as jewelry and food that conjure feelings of nostalgia for the artist. Solid gold luster embellishes mundane, everyday objects, an ode to the tradition of bronzing keepsakes such as baby shoes and an implication of the personal and cultural significance of the object itself. Friday leverages the rich cultural, religious and art historical significance of gold to signify notions of heaven, alchemy, eternal youth and immortality. 

“Black culture often functions as both heaven and a haven,” Friday explained. “We find solace in the Black church and spirituality, in community, music and food. We turn to these things and each other to sustain ourselves as we endeavor to survive, sustain and to memorialize the things we are constantly losing.”

Friday says Black culture is often unfairly criticized for being “too young” or “not real,” descriptions used to elevate its perceived flimsiness and diminish its validity. However, her work contradicts this idea and highlights its dynamic nature as a tool of survival.

“As a culture born from the descendants of enslaved Africans, Black culture is constantly adapting, transforming and reinventing itself,” Friday said. “This perpetual renewal is not a weakness but rather a testament to its resilience as each attempt at oppression forces a rebirth.”

Friday’s work has been showcased in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including “Rest is Power” curated by the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University (2023) and “The Cartography Project” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. (2022). The Miami-based artist has also received numerous awards, fellowships and grants. In 2023, she was named the South Arts Southern Prize State Fellow for the State of Florida.

About the Museum

Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design is a dynamic laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art. As Sarasota’s only museum solely focused on contemporary artists and their work, Sarasota Art Museum offers visitors a place to see thought-provoking exhibitions and participate in education programs that start conversations and amplify the city’s creative spirit. 

Located in the historic Sarasota High School, Sarasota Art Museum opened to the public in 2019 and features 15,000 square feet of dedicated exhibition space, the outdoor Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza, the Great Lawn featuring temporary sculpture and site-specific installations, Bistro and SHOP. Sarasota Art Museum is home to a robust portfolio of education programs for all ages, including the Studios at SAM, a vibrant studio arts program, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Ringling College, which offers a variety of courses for adult learners. 

 Sarasota Art Museum is located at 1001 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236.

 ADMISSION: 

General Admission: $20  

Museum Members: Free 

Under 17, accompanied by an adult: Free  

Cross College Alliance Students: Free with ID  

Veterans/Active Military: Free with ID 

 MUSEUM HOURS: 

Open 7 days a week 

Monday-Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

Sunday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.