FRESH PAINT
Tschabalala Self

For the sixth iteration of the collaborative FRESH PAINT exhibition series, the Parrish Art Museum and The FLAG Art Foundation are pleased to present a recent work by the artist Tschabalala Self (American, b. 1990 in Harlem, NY). Self’s painting Adam and Eve (2025), made for her recent solo exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, will be presented for the first time in the U.S. at the Parrish. For over a decade, the artist has built a singular style from the syncretic use of painting, printmaking and sculpture to explore ideas surrounding figuration. She constructs depictions of predominantly women using a combination of sewn, printed, and painted materials, traversing different artistic and craft traditions. Ambiguity and multiplicity are core principles of Self’s work, which melds fact with fiction. This accumulative approach is evident in Adam and Eve, in which Self has set the central figures against a dense backdrop of blooms and foliage, rendered through a process of relief printing. The assemblage elements of the work are gathered from collected textiles, occasionally found from reworked paintings. Self’s stitchwork serves two functions, holding the disparate elements together while acting as as a drawn line, accentuating the figures’ contours and delineating their finer details.

Adam and Eve is part of Self’s ongoing exploration into the history and nature of symbolism within Western culture. Symbols, much like Self’s work, exist somewhere between representation and abstraction—an object transformed into an icon, which serves as a stand-in for abstract concepts. Concerned with “the iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture,” Self maintains an interest in how various cultural messages become coded within emblems, allegories, and, in the case of Adam and Eve, biblical stories. Inspired by Genesis—with its themes of temptation, defiance, and the power of choice—the work’s diptych format emphasizes the dual possibilities that the forbidden fruit represents. “The apple simultaneously holds the power for expansion and destruction,” explains Self. “The collision of the two will create the chaos that we are familiar with in our current state of being. Will Eve lose God’s favor? Will this loss result in her ultimate salvation through choice?’” Released from predetermined plot lines, Self’s Eve is an embodiment of free will.

FRESH PAINT is a rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions at the Parrish that spotlight new or rarely exhibited works by both emerging and established artists. By circumventing traditional exhibition planning timelines—which can extend years into the future—FRESH PAINT provides a platform for artists to promptly showcase freshly created artworks and ideas, allowing for a more direct response to current issues and cultural movements. This approach fosters a timelier dialogue between the Museum, visitors, and our surrounding community. Presented in the Parrish’s Creativity Lounge located in the Lobby, FRESH PAINT is open to the public at no charge during regular Museum hours.

Each FRESH PAINT installation is accompanied by two sets of interpretative texts: one is a commissioned piece of writing by an invited author, critic, poet, or scholar; the other is a collaboration between members of the Parrish Teen Council ARTscope, a youth-focused educational initiative that offers participants a comprehensive exploration of the visual arts, career pathways, and practical experience in museum operations.

FRESH PAINT: Tschabalala Self is organized by Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish Art Museum, in collaboration with Jon Rider, Director; Caroline Cassidy, Deputy Director; and Madeline DeFilippis, Exhibitions and Programs Manager, at FLAG.

Exhibition Support
FRESH PAINT: Tschabalala Self is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The FLAG Art Foundation.

The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.

About Tschabalala Self
Born and raised in Harlem, New York, Self began making art from a young age. She went on to earn a BA in studio art from Bard College and an MFA in painting and printmaking from the Yale School of Art, where she developed her eclectic process, incorporating disparate materials and techniques into her work. Using a “kaleidoscope of elements”—including painting, stitching, and printing—allowed Self to capture “the complexity of the human experience better than any photo or traditional painting could.” This layered, multifaceted approach is essential to her inquiries into race and gender. “The fantasies and attitudes surrounding the Black female body are both accepted and rejected within my practice, and through this disorientation, new possibilities arise,” Self explains. “I am attempting to provide alternative, and perhaps fictional, explanations for the voyeuristic tendencies towards the gendered and racialised body; a body which is both exalted and abject.” While her early canvases present these characters set against monochromatic fields of color—what the artist has described as “liminal spaces”—Self began creating environmental portraits in the mid-2010s, from domestic scenes (2016–20), to her “Bodega Run” (2017–19) and “Street Scenes” (2018–19) series. In more recent years, Self has expanded her practice from works on canvas into sculpture, installation, and performance, a medium she explored as a Performa 2021 Biennial Fellow.

Self has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2025); the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2024); Barbican, London (2024); Desert X, Coachella Valley (2023); the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2021); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2020); and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019); among many others. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of numerous art institutions, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, France; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. She has held residencies at the American Academy in Rome, Fountainhead, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Self currently lives and works in the Hudson Valley.

About The FLAG Art Foundation
The FLAG Art Foundation is a non-collecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person, and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe. Organized by a diverse community of curators and thinkers within and beyond the art world, FLAG opened to the public in 2008 and has staged over 100 exhibitions celebrating the work of nearly 1,000 artists. Committed to providing education and resources for its surrounding community, and across New York City, all exhibitions and programs—including artist talks, artist-led workshops, and guided tours for school and museum groups—are free and open to the public.

The FLAG Art Foundation was founded by Glenn Fuhrman, an art patron and philanthropist, alongside his wife Amanda, a Co-Founder of The Fuhrman Family Foundation. Fuhrman is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and The Tate Americas Foundation, New York, NY; and is a Board Member of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. He is also a Board Member of the 92nd Street Y, New York, NY, and The Central Park Conservancy, New York, NY.