Honfleur Gallery Presents We Gather What Echoes

Bringing Together Four Black Artists Exploring Memory, Identity, and Ancestral Stories

OPENING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK
Friday, November 13, 2026
6:00 PM–8:00 PM
Artist Talk begins at 6:30 PM

RSVP HERE
Exhibition Website

Curated by Anika Hobbs, the exhibition brings collage and mixed media into conversation with the histories, images, and experiences that shape Black identity.

WASHINGTON, DC — November 11, 2026 — Honfleur Gallery will open We Gather What Echoes on Friday, November 13, bringing together the work of Jess Owens-Young, Paula Mans, Khadija Jahmila, and Brittany Moná. Curated by Anika Hobbs, founder of Nubian Hueman, the exhibition explores how memory, ancestry, identity, and personal history find expression through collage and mixed media.

We Gather What Echoes asks us to consider what we carry with us, the images, stories, traditions, and experiences that shape how we see ourselves and the world around us. Photographs, family stories, music, religious practices, traditions, and materials passed down through generations all hold traces of the people and experiences that came before. Each artist brings these fragments together in a different way, creating works rooted in personal histories and shared cultural experiences.

Much like a sampled record or a familiar melody reimagined by a new voice, collage takes something that already exists and places it in a different context. The original remains present, but its meaning can change with each new interpretation. This idea runs through the exhibition, where images, materials, and visual references carry histories of their own.

Each artist approaches this process differently.

Jess Owens-Young layers painted paper, vintage magazines, and hymnal pages into portraits of Black women whose presence is confident and self-assured. In Been That Girl and She Who Writes Her Dreams Shall Manifest, references to faith and popular culture come together, bringing the language of the church into conversation with the visual culture of fashion magazines. With a practice shaped by her background as a semi-professional athlete and her interest in Black leisure, play, and pride, Owens-Young places joy and faith at the center of her visual storytelling.

Paula Mans, a native Washingtonian whose formative years in Tanzania, Mozambique, Eswatini, and Brazil shaped her perspective, uses collage to explore connections between people and places across the African diaspora. By cutting and reassembling images of people, she creates new faces and visual relationships. Her round works, Blood Blossom, #2, Blood Blossom, #3, and Black Star, evoke medallions of lineage, while Dahomey references a West African kingdom whose history continues to resonate. Her work reflects a diaspora made up of many dispersed communities, connected through shared ancestry and history.

Khadija Jahmila, an Afro-Caribbean artist born in Maryland, combines hand-cut paper and digital collage to create Afrofuturist works grounded in ancestral knowledge. In Jumbie Crossing, Caribbean folklore and spiritual traditions come into view, while I'm Only Pretending To Be Small and I Don't Wanna Grow Up explore the imagination and possibilities of Black girlhood. Her work connects ancestral knowledge with imagined futures, showing how the past can shape what is yet to come.

Brittany Moná, born in Washington, DC, and based in Maryland, uses acrylic, fabric, and thread to bring personal and collective memories into her paintings. Works including HandMeDowns, YoullGrowIntoIt, Who Baby Is Dat? : A Family Function, Me and My Brothas, and When The Street Lights Come On draw from familiar experiences of family, neighborhood, and growing up. Through layered materials and stitched details, Moná creates scenes that reflect the relationships, places, and everyday moments that shape a sense of belonging.

Fashion by Nigerian brands 14ZeroSeven and Eki Kere will also accompany the exhibition, extending its exploration of mixing materials, layering, and cultural expression into fashion.

CURATOR STATEMENT

“Today, as we think deeply about sustainability and the innovation of Black creativity, I wanted to bring together art and fashion that honor what came before while showing how inherited and overlooked materials can take on new meaning. I think of my grandmother’s quilts, where each block held a story; fabric from my uncle’s pants, an aunt’s church blouse, or an old bedsheet. These pieces came together beautifully, kept us warm, and carried the stories of those who came before us. That same spirit is what I feel in the work of these artists and designers and what continues to echo through us.”

Visitors are invited to spend time with the works, look closely at the materials and details, and reflect on the histories and experiences that continue to shape the present.