Curated by Dr. Rebecca VanDiver, associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University, Carving a New Tradition showcases a selection of recent prints and mixed-media artwork from the studio of the Arkansas-born, Baltimore-based painter and printmaker LaToya M. Hobbs. Hobbs is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, an artistic collective aimed at rendering the work of Black women printmakers—past, present, and future—visible.

Her monumental woodcarving Carving Out Time anchors this exhibition and highlights her ongoing explorations of Black womanhood, identity, and artistic legacy that reverberate through the other artworks on view. Hobbs honors the rich traditions of printmaking and her Black artistic foremothers while pushing medium’s boundaries, exhibiting the matrix as object and incorporating mixed-media elements. 

Carving a New Tradition: The Art of LaToya M. Hobbs is organized by the Frist Art Museum with Dr. Rebecca VanDiver, associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University.