Black Power I, 2026
Malene Djenaba Barnett
Black Power I, 2026
Stoneware with metallic glaze
75 x 50 in
The phrase Black Power is carved repeatedly across the clay surface—sometimes fractured, sometimes overlapping—echoing a system’s attempt to dismantle what cannot be undone. The bronze glints become moments of reflection, asking viewers to see themselves within the language of endurance.
This work is a reminder that no matter the forces that seek to erase or reorder it, Black power—and the self-determination it embodies—cannot be dismantled.
Black Power Scripts
This series transforms the contemporary Adinkra alphabet—a symbolic writing system created by Dr. Charles M. Korankye—into sculptural declarations of Black liberation, carved into clay surfaces that recall the facades of Nubian and Hausa architecture where wisdom and protection have long been inscribed into walls.
Black Power Scripts turns clay into a language of remembrance and resistance. Each mural draws from these architectural lineages, where walls once held words of guidance and protection. Carved in this contemporary Adinkra script, the compositions echo the rhythms of Kuba and Kente cloth, translating ancestral form into new declarations of power.
These works build spaces of affirmation in a time of erasure—reminding us that Black power is self-defined, self-sustained, and carried within.
