The Dance: In collaboration with Cierra Britton Gallery (Los Angeles, CA)
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 21 from 5 - 8 PM
1923 S. Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90021
The Dance, presented by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in collaboration with Cierra Britton Gallery is a meditation on the politics and poetics of bodily movement. Rooted in the visual language of classical forms and experimental gesture, the exhibition explores the significance of femme movement as both ritual and resistance through the lens of artists Latifa Alajlan, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Hiba Schahbaz, Sydney Vernon, Rena Monet, Emily Manwaring, and Naomi Lisiki. From ballet to voguing, to gestural abstract painting, movement has long transcended the stage and dance floor—becoming a vital tool for self-expression, community formation, and the preservation of bodily autonomy.
Drawing on visual references as evocative as Black Swan and Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, the works in this show offer studies in singular and communal motion—highlighting how choreography, whether performed or conjured, becomes a way of reclaiming power. Here, the body becomes its own archive: twisting, pulsing, reaching, and returning in service of memory, survival, and transformation.
Founded in 2021, the Cierra Britton Gallery is the first NYC-based gallery dedicated to representing BIPOC womxn artists whose work contributes to the contemporary cultural dialogue across the globe. The gallery’s mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work, inclusive of all mediums such as painting, photography, drawing, and performance. Starting as a nomadic and online gallery, our programming has focused on a diverse roster of artists making work that is rooted in storytelling, exploration, and cultural commentary.
Cierra Britton Gallery is creating a safe and much-needed space for BIPOC womxn artists who have historically been marginalized from the mainstream art world. We aim to uphold artists and create community through dialogue and support for the arts.
Cierra Britton (b.1996, Baltimore, MD) is a curator and art dealer living and working in New York City. As the director of the Cierra Britton Gallery, her mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work across all mediums.
