DANCE WITH ME, AFRICA! Opening reception, Friday, October 4th, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Introduction by Marina Brown.

Do you like gumbo? Can you cha-cha? Do you listen to the Blues or Rap or Hip Hop? Do you eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s?

If so, whether your skin is white or dark, you’re sampling just a few of the ways in which cultural influences brought from the African continent have gone on to become part of who North Americans, Latin Americans, and South Americans believe they are.

The African Diaspora… the forced dispersion of peoples across the globe who carried with them their music, religions, culinary arts, and indominable spirits has brought great richness to many cultures. And in a new exhibition of over 40 paintings by Marina Brown, that diversity is celebrated at the Anderson Brickler Gallery in Tallahassee with Dance With Me, Africa!

In rooms titled, ‘Africa and the Diaspora,’ ‘Coming to America,’ ‘The Hard Times’, and ‘Joy and Seeding the World,’ the exhibition looks at the roots of African culture and how those influences are seen across the globe in both their difficulties and joy.

Marina Brown, primarily a watercolor painter (as well as author and Democrat correspondent) has for years found great beauty in “the colors of dark skin.” “It is possible to paint brilliant reds, or blues, or greens onto skin that absorbs and reflects its surroundings. It is like a chest of jewels.” And then there is the movement.

Marina Brown looks out across the exhibition’s new and retrospective works of movement and swirling color, saying, “There is joy in dancing—one with another—holding hands, watching each other’s smiles. I would like to think this exhibit invites that feeling Dance With Me, Africa! and, I will dance with you!