Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, The net that holds fresh flowers as time keeper, studio image, 2026. Handmade cotton paper with pigmented paper pulp, 41 x 57 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and River Valley Arts Collective.
[Brightly colored drawings made with pigmented paper pulp. Two sheets of large pieces of paper are partially stacked on top of the third sheet in the foreground. Words in English dance across the sheet of large black paper and are intertwined and obscured by geometric hand drawn forms and shapes resembling spirals, webs and nets. Colors such as light blue, sky blue, citron yellow, forest green, brown, orange and purple, are used to make a very alive and busy feeling drawing.]
In collaboration with River Valley Arts Collective, we are pleased to host soaring and soaring as survival, a solo exhibition by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo. Curated by Olga Dekalo, the presentation includes a series of handmade cotton paper works exhibited for the first time and photographs the artist made in collaboration with Nicholas Valdes. On view at the Al Held Foundation from September 5 through October 18, 2026.
Branfman-Verissimo created the series of handmade paper works while in residence at Women's Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY) in 2023. Evident in the compositions are papermaking techniques such as double couching, where wet sheets are layered with felt on both sides to prevent sticking; inclusions, where a second layer of pulp is embedded directly into the base layer of wet pulp; and blowouts, flaws that happen when air gets trapped or water forces a hole through the wet sheet during paper’s formation. The artist strategically integrates these methods within a vast color palette of asymmetric grids and bold dissecting lines that rush, ripple, and run through Branfman-Verissimo’s writing and poetry.
The compositions’ visual and textual forms extend the visual plane to propose an embodiment of an aesthetic resistance. Emitting a vocabulary of webs, nets, kites, quilts, banners and the appearance of a broken chainlink fence, the series takes inspiration from the concept of poetic narratives of Black fugitivity articulated by the cultural theorist, poet, and scholar Fred Moten. Moten conceptualizes a break, as an improvisational, ruptural space, and a collective performance of survival and future-making. The artist registers this dissonant operation of disruption and evasion in the series in order to carve out a new, spatial-temporal opening.
The presentation takes the form of a project, a practice, and a set of illocutionary strategies that seek an unofficiated, underground fellowship. Branfman-Verissimo’s vision for an active, social and improvisational practice extends and assembles that radical webbing as expressed in their own words, “A practitioner of the web, I am called to that form because that’s the way it's always been, that's the way I root, the form that holds our multitudes and sets us free.”
Lukasa Branfman-Verissimo is an artist, abolitionist, educator, storyteller and person of multitudes who lives and works on the unceded lands of the Schaghticoke, Mohican and Munsee Lenape people (also known as the Hudson Valley, NY). Through a practice based in the printed multiple, community-based work, performance and installation building, they invite the viewer to recall and share their own lived narratives, offering power and weight to the creation of a larger dialogue around the telling of Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, People of color’s stories. Branfman-Verissimo's work has been included in exhibitions and performances at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, California African American Museum, MOCA Cleveland, Smith College Art Museum, Konsthall C, San Francisco Arts Commission, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and L’Internationale Online, amongst others. Lukaza got their BFA at California College of the Arts and MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. They facilitate spaces of learning and exchange at the School for Poetic Computation and Bard College.
Exhibition tours will be held on September 5, September 14, September 28, and October 18. Please register here and note the following visitor information.
The Al Held Foundation premises are historic and therefore do not fully conform to ADA accessibility guidelines. The exhibition is up two flights of stairs and not wheelchair accessible. The painting studio is located on the second floor and can be accessed from a garage-like storage space with a rough cement floor that has four steps with no handrail. There is a non ADA accessible gender neutral single occupancy restroom located on the second floor/ same level of the painting studio. The floor texture on the second floor is smooth and made of enamel. The drawing studio is located on the third floor and is where the exhibition is located, which is 11 steps with a handrail. The floor texture on the third floor is fairly smooth and made of thick panels of wood. Seating with backs will be set up for use throughout all the floors. The most accessible parking spots are anywhere from 5 to 25 feet away from the studio entrance. Other parking spots are up to 100 feet away from the building’s entrance and can be reached by walking across a mostly flat paved asphalt parking area with a slight incline before accessing the building.
Dogs and other pets are not permitted on the premises, even if left in cars. Licensed service animals are permitted with prior approval.
To ensure equitable access, masks will be provided and required to be worn in all interior spaces. Thank you for keeping the community safe.
Please contact us ahead of your visit at info@rvacollective.org if you have additional access needs or questions.