Meet Me At The Altar is a visual art and healing experience that centers Black women, femmes, and gender-expansive artists exploring the sacred work of becoming. Through various artistic mediums and wellness practices, this exhibition creates a sacred space where creativity becomes devotion, community becomes sanctuary, and the work of becoming is honored.
Curated by Ari Sianeh.
RECEPTIONS
- Art Loop, Friday, February 6, 5-8pm
- Coffee Hour in the Gallery and Wellness Workshop, Sunday, February 15, Noon to 4pm
- Art Loop, Friday, March 6, 5-8pm
About “Meet Me At The Altar”
The show features artwork from artists across the Mid-Atlantic region who navigate the intersections of faith, identity, queerness, and liberation. These artists come from diverse spiritual backgrounds — the churched, the unchurched, and those who find the divine outside traditional spaces — yet within their works, you will find a shared reverence for creativity as devotion.
Behind each artwork lies a journey: of transformation, of resilience, of reclamation and rest. Together, these works reflect both individual healing and our collective need for spaces that honor the fullness of Black women and femmes. We invite you to step into this sanctuary, witness these expressions of spirit, and experience art as worship.
Here, creativity becomes restoration. Community becomes sanctuary. And the work of becoming is honored.
Curator Statement by Ari Sianeh
As someone who has spent years seeking spaces that could hold all of me — my Blackness, my queerness, my faith, my questions — I know intimately what it means to create from the margins. Meet Me At The Altar is born from that seeking, from the desire to build what I couldn’t always find: a sanctuary that doesn’t ask us to shrink, perform, or explain ourselves.
This exhibition is rooted in my own journey through liberation theology, Womanist thought, and the radical act of centering Black women and femmes in spaces of spiritual expression. Growing up in and around the church, I witnessed both its beauty and its harm — the ways it could uplift and the ways it could silence. I’ve learned that the sacred isn’t confined to buildings with steeples; it lives in sound bowls and studio spaces, in meditation circles and paint-stained hands, in the brave work of artists who refuse to separate their creativity from their healing.
Meet Me At The Altar asks: What does it mean to meet yourself at the altar of your own making? How do we hold space for Black women and femmes to explore spirituality on our own terms — messy, beautiful, queer, ancestral, evolving? How do we create sanctuary that honors our full humanity?
The artists in this exhibition create from their inner worlds and emotional landscapes. They explore themes of identity, resilience, belonging, grounding, ancestral presence, personal ritual, and transformation. Their work reminds us that our art is ministry, our healing is revolutionary, and our presence is sacred.
I am deeply grateful to curate this exhibition and to witness the courage it takes to create vulnerably. To the artists who trusted me with their stories: thank you for showing up boldly. To those who enter this space: may you find reflection, restoration, and permission to become.
This is for the ones who were told their worship wasn’t reverent enough, their faith too questioning, their existence too much. This is for us.
20 Artists
Asata Maisé, Brittany Glover, Ciera Suragh, Charlese Phillips, Dominique Jones, Ellen Cappard, Erika Acevedo, Lady Morae, Marcien Dorliae, Marie Smith, MC, Phoenix, Sienna Jori, Shaylin Wallace, Shonté Young-Williams, Stephanie Boateng, Tish Williams, Tisha Taylor, Ty Nevils, Xyare Patrick
Price List
Click here to see the price list in PDF format in a new tab.
Wellness Workshop, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026 at Noon.
Sol Sunday is our wellness workshop within Meet Me At The Altar. This event is an offering for Black women and femmes to have mental rest and some time offline with others!
we’re talking:
Sound Bowl Healing by Stephani Akira
( @akira_stephani of @bathe_in_sound )
(ahhhtt, ahht, ahht – there are scientific benefits to this modality including – studies (NIH) have shown that singing bowl sound meditation can produce physiological and psychological responses, reducing negative affect and increasing positive affect, as well as improving blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. )
Guided Mental Exercises & Prompts
(you knew that was coming)
Intentional Charm Bracelet Making
(why vision board when you can stamp a moment in time with a bracelet as a reminder)
Art Discussion
(of course!)
