When Calida Rawles was a student at Spelman in the late 1990s, she watched the campus museum open and imagined having her work on those walls someday. Now, nearly three decades later, that moment has arrived.
"Away with the Tides" opened March 27 at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and runs through September 5. The exhibition features hyperrealist acrylic paintings of Black subjects submerged in water, alongside a video installation exploring Miami's historic Overtown neighborhood.
Rawles built the works through a collaborative process with Overtown residents, using water as both visual subject and historical metaphor. The exhibition originated at Perez Art Museum Miami in 2024 before traveling to several venues. Spelman is the final stop on the national tour, a detail the 1998 graduate says carries deep meaning.
