"liberation is my participation in a tradition held by an exclusive membership of power, privilege and cultural authority. i am the outsider inside the belly of the Beast."

Liberation is the self-determination to improve one's life from a journey of struggle and ignorance to empowerment and enlightenment. The works presented are meant to challenge the viewer to see the world with an open eye; to question the historical and contemporary conditioning we tend to overlook in our busy lives.

André Leon Gray's works explore social and political consciousness. Using reclaimed objects and images, Gray's works are an amalgam of ideas designed to generate associative and contradictory meanings. Each piece, densely packed and impeccably constructed, is like a conceptual equation meant to help the viewer to consider what it means to be African American at this particular moment in history.

Gray refers to his works as "eye gumbo", instead of mixed media. Eye gumbo is a visual meal for the mind, thickened with a roux of Black culture, marinated in social commentary and seasoned with consciousness.

Prior to the exhibition, André Leon Gray participated in the Fountainhead Residency in Miami. Gray has shown his works throughout the United States. His works are currently on view in the "African Continuum" exhibition at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and is part of the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art.