Crisp-Ellert Museum Artist Exhibition: Origins

Stop by the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum on the Flagler College campus to view a special exhibit, Origins, showcasing the work of Karen Hampton.

A textile-based artist, Hampton explores stories of the African-American diaspora, as well as her ancestral ties to Northeast Florida.

Through extensive genealogical research, Hampton has traced her family to descendants in St. Augustine, Florida that includes the British-born George J.F. Clarke (1774-1836), who served as the Surveyor General and Lieutenant Governor during the Second Spanish Period, and his unmarried wife Flora Leslie (1771-1832), a formerly enslaved woman whom he manumitted. The fascinating story of their large, multiracial, land-owning family in the late 18th to mid-19th centuries has been the catalyst for an ongoing body of work since her first visit to St. Augustine in 2006.

Hampton's work uses hand-woven textiles, digital prints and embroidery on cloth as well as hand-dyed fabrics to consider her own lineage, and how these individuals are connected to Black American history within Spanish Florida, the United States and the African Diaspora. Often merging ancestral methods of textile production with more experimental contemporary processes, the work represents a window into the world her ancestors had to traverse, from the late 1700s to the Civil War, and the return to their homeland in Florida.

The exhibition will open with a walkthrough by the artists at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 4, 2022, followed by an opening reception until 8 p.m.

Call (904) 826-8530 for more information or visit here.

Admission: Free

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: Crisp-Ellert Art Museum is located on the Flagler College campus at 48 Sevilla St. in historic downtown.